Antti Niemi got the shutout and Joe Thornton had two points as the Sharks continued their climb up the Western Conference last night. San Jose held control of the game early and never looked back, outshooting Nashville 34-29.
Another good game by the Sharks, and another two points. San Jose now sits 6th in the Western Conference and 3rd in the Pacific after passing the Calgary Flames and catching up to the Vancouver Canucks.
Thoughts
Faceoffs
How great were the Sharks in faceoffs last night? 64%, so they were fantastic.
Logan Couture was 75% and Joe Thornton was 67%. The only player under 50% was James Sheppard but he won 55% of his draws (6/11) in the defensive zone so I’m alright with that. If you had to pick one of the offensive, defensive or neutral zones to win a draw it’d be the defensive, considering the Sharks struggles in their own end this year.
They made life difficult for Nashville in pretty much all aspects of this game.
Tommy Wingels
Wingels is such a great player to watch. There’s really nothing I don’t like about his game. He’s been looking for a fight for the last few games and he finally got one with James Neal. This scrap was as much about getting under Neal’s skin as it was anything else.
Aside from taking one of the Predators best players off the ice for five minutes, Wingels also ended the Nashville powerplay as Neal took an extra two minutes with the fighting major.
Joe Thornton
Another two point night for Joe Thornton, who is on pace for another 70+ point season. All this guy does is compete and lead the Sharks offensively.
The broadcast had an interesting note about Thornton during the first period of the game: He’s got 94 primary assists on game-winning-goals. Translation: Joe’s filthy helper mitts set up the winner 94 times. If I remember correctly from the screen shot that was good enough for 5th all-time.
The Hertl-Thornton-Pavelski line looks more like they did last year now that things have settled down for the Sharks which should keep McLellan’s bingo ball drum of lines at bay for a while.
Now that the Sharks have settled down they look like the strong, confident possession team that was on the ice last seasons. They no longer look dejected and disappointed in themselves and they are playing more complete games. Niemi and Stalock have been fantastic during the 8 game (7-1) stretch of games and they’re going to need to keep it up for the next several games as well.
The Sharks now play three games in their next 13 days. Yes, you read that right, they have only three games in the next 13 days. The schedule makers strike again. San Jose has had, by far, the strangest schedule in the NHL this year.
The good news is they should be well rested; the bad news is it will be tough to keep up the momentum they had, they’ll likely have to build it back up again.
Edmonton and St Louis at home and then Anaheim in Anaheim, so they don’t make it out of California. Perhaps this should be viewed as a nice reward for the body of work they’ve done over the last eight games. I’ll go with that.
After they had their four game win streak shattered by the Edmonton Oilers I wondered - and I wasn't alone - if the streak was a bright spot on a lost season. That's not the case. The Sharks are playing with a renewed sense of life right now and don't appear to be satisfied with simply getting back into a playoff spot.
That's the attitude that will help them continue to win games and prove to the hockey world that they are still a top team in the West. Now they have a few days to work on chemistry and defensive issues to tighten up for the tough stretch of games ahead.
Thanks for reading.