As expected the San Jose Sharks handled the Dallas Stars with ease on Sunday night. The Shark scored fives times, including two from captain Joe Pavelski in a convincing and fairly ease 5-1 victory.
Aaron Dell was lights out again, making 29 saves to earn his 10th win of the season.
Patrick Marleau, Joel Ward and Chris Tierney also scored for the Sharks who are now 41-20-7 with 89 points. They remain seven point sup on Anaheim in the Pacific.
A win like that helps to erase the bad taste left over from the loss to Nashville on Saturday.
A few quick thoughts to end the night -
He's a Dell of a good goalie...
All the talk leading up to the trade deadline surrounded San Jose's desire for a suitable back-up for Martin Jones. It never made much sense to me. Dell is a rookie but he has handled his role like a veteran.
Dell come in when his number is called and gets the job done. In 13 starts the 10-2 with a 1.82 goals against, a .932 save percentage and he's 6-1 in the second game of back-to-backs.
With 10 games in 17 nights and a pair of back-to-backs left in March, expect to see more and more of Dell down the stretch. What more could a coach or GM want from their back-up goalie?
Jones needs some rest and Dell is more than up to the task.
Pavelski heating up...
Joe Pavelski score a pair of goals on Sunday, including the GWG, to increase his season total to 26. The Sharks captain can be a very streaky scorer and he appears to be streaking in the right direction.
- Following a 13 games stretch with just four goals, Pavelski has five goals in the last four games.
- Pavelski now has 18 game winning goals since the start of last season. That's the most in the entire league over that span.
- With 61 points in 68 games this season, Captain America is in position to reach the 70 point marks for a fourth consecutive season.
March-ing into the fire....
The Sharks host Buffalo on Tuesday and then the schedule takes a turn for the worse. San Jose schedule for the remainder of March? Check this out...
3/16 vs. STL 3/18 vs. ANA 3/20 @ DAL 3/21 @ MIN 3/24 @DAL 3/25 @NSH 3/28 NYR 3/30 EDM 3/31 CGY
A few more quick hits before I head to bed...
- Since going 2 for 5 against Washington, the Sharks power play in 0 for 9, including 0 for 5 against the 30th ranked (73.5%) Dallas penalty kill. Time for Pete Deboer to scratch what he's been doing and go back to drawing board.
- Chris Tierney scored. Yay! It was his first goals since Feb. 2. In the 15 games since then he has a mere two assists and the came in the same game! Glad he got that monkey off his back.
- Logan Couture had two assists vs. Dallas. Just how rare are multi-assist games from Couture? It's his first multi-assist game since Dec. 23. He has TWO multi-assist games this season and that's it.
In case you were wondering...he has two multi-goals games season as well.
thanks for reading, Steve