The San Jose Sharks beat the Calgary Flames at their own game last night.
Calgary had a significant possession advantage through two periods and should have been ahead instead of tied 2-2 heading into the third period. When the teams came out for the third San Jose turned in a better possession outing in, essentially, what became a one period game.
This was an ugly game for the San Jose Sharks, outside of Antti Niemi who was brilliant. They showed up for the last minute of the first period and the first three of the second, but other than that – through forty minutes – their play should have earned them a worse fate on the scoreboard.
Tyler Kennedy left the game very early in the first period and that seemed to send Todd McLellan into panic mode with his lines. This was a huge contributing factor as to why the Flames were controlling the puck for forty minutes. Here’s a few fun things that happened after the Kennedy injury to the Sharks TOI.
- At one point Andrew Desjardins had more TOI than Pavelski, Marleau and Couture.
- Hannan/Irwin had more TOI than Burns/Dillon through two periods.
- Dillon had the least amount of TOI for defenders despite 2nd best Corsi (excluding Kennedy)
- Heading into the third Joe Pavelski was on pace for 16:36 TOI and Joe Thornton 17:15 for the ENTIRE game.
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It’s kind of hard to control possession when your best players aren’t on the ice. Look at this screenshot of the Sharks ice-time after the first period.
Tyler Kennedy’s absence threw McLellan for quite the loop as he started handing out even ice-time to everyone. TOI was on clearance pricing for the first and second periods. McLellan did settle down in the third, playing the Joe's for nearly half of the frame which, coincidentally went in line with the Sharks gaining possession control. Funny how that works.
To get a real gauge on how bad the first two periods were for San Jose let this sink in:
Sharks 5v5 Corsi leader through two periods: John Scott
Yeah, that’s how things were going for San Jose.
If not for Antti Niemi the Sharks would have been blown out I’m sure of it. He made some huge saves in each period and I can’t even pin blame on him for either goal. He never saw Giordano’s goal and everyone seemed to forget Johnny Gaudreau even existed, leaving him all alone on the doorstep.
Give the Flames credit, they took advantage of poor line distribution and should have had a better result after 40. Ramo played pretty well himself and should get some of the credit for the game being close by the end of things. The Sharks had some quality chances that were turned aside.
Final Thoughts
Patrick Marleau and Logan Couture had great games. Marleau's single off a Couture pitch to put the Sharks up 3-2 (85th career GWG) was a great display of hand-eye coordination from one of the village elders who was almost run out of town.
A 5-on-3 with under 5 minutes to play is not one that should be wasted cycling the puck the whole time. Shoot the puck and stop making me sick.
Hannan and Irwin did not have a good game. Plain and simple they were terrible. I’d love to know the reason as to why they out-ice-timed Brenden Dillon.
Johnny Gaudreau seems to get faster every time I see the Flames play. He gets tossed around when people can catch him but he never quits. He could be Calgary’s Marty St. Louis in a few years.
The Sharks improved to 6-0-0 with Mike Brown in the lineup. The question now becomes: Will they ever lose again with Brown in? Probably not. I expect them to finish the season 60-0-0 with him, he’s just too much of an impact player.
The focus now quickly shifts to the Edmonton Oilers with a start time of 9pmET(6pmPDT) tonight.
This is just the type of game the Sharks would lose. It’s the second game of a back-to-back and it’s against a lowly team. I can already hear the excuses if they do.
San Jose needs to re-group and get focused, fast. There is a pair of free points sitting on the table as long as they show up and play their game. No nonsense like the first two periods against Calgary.
They are tied with Winnipeg, one point back of the Kings and four points back of Calgary. Two of those teams are in the Pacific so it’s not out of the question to get a seed better than a wildcard, although it's still a long road ahead. That’s what the Sharks have to focus on; continuing to win hockey games and climb the standings.
With four wins in a row things are looking up for San Jose and they have the potential to get another pair with the home-and-home against Edmonton. It’s not a given and it won’t be easy, but it’s there for the taking and, boy, would it help.
Puck drop is 9pmET(6pmPDT).
Thanks for reading.
San Jose Sharks Blogger • 
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