The San Jose Sharks played spoiler for the Kings banner ceremony last night, blanking the interstate rivals 4-0. Antti Niemi recorded the shutout and Tommy Wingels led the way with two highlight goals on offense. Patrick Marleau added a nice deflection off of a Burns pass and Matt Nieto flipped a Marealu-created turnover into an empty net while Quick was wandering behind the cage.
It only took Quick 40 minutes of hockey to get his first break of the season, getting chased after the second period after receiving the brunt of the Sharks beatdown. Mike Brown had an early scrap with Kyle Clifford that featured a few connections on both sides before Brown wrestled Clifford to the ice. This brings me to my next point: John Scott. After watching the game last night, and Brown’s willingness to still drop the mitts, can someone tell me what the point of John Scott is again? At least Brown and Burish can skate. If you enter John Scott into that game the bottom six quality takes a nose dive and you can’t roll those players for 11 minutes like last night.
Jason Demers played a Dan Boyle-like game on the blueline, logging heavy minutes and pinching in the offensive zone whenever possible. Demers is a player that didn't look good in the pre-season but was in line to take over Boyles position on the team regardless. A good performance from the two-way defender.
The special teams put on a solid performance going 1/4 on the PP and 5/5 on the PK. The Kings outshot the Sharks 34-30 and the Sharks took the faceoffs 42-29. The biggest thing about this game wasn't the captaincy, or lackthereof, it wasn't about redeeming themselves; it was about getting two points on the road at the start of a 16:5 road to home ratio to start the season. The Sharks put all distractions aside and put forth a solid performance.
Here are five thoughts on the game:
Third Line Performance
The line of McGinn-Tierney-Wingels was the best line for San Jose the entire night. They forechecked like every shift was their last, created scoring chances and played defensively responsible. This was a great example of a functional third line, exactly what the Sharks need, even without the two Wingels goals. The line combined for 3 points, 6 shots, +6 rating, 3 hits and 3 blocked shots.
Brent Burns
Burns was the Sharks best defender last night. Unlike the pre-season, where he looked confused at times, Burns was a force in his own end and an impact contributor on offense. He finished with two assists, +1 rating and two hits while leading the Sharks in ice-time with 21:35.
Antti Niemi
Yes, he got the shutout. No, it wasn’t pretty. Niemi made two great saves sliding across the crease on Jeff Carter, but other than that it was a routine night for Niemi. He kept the puck out of the net but looked confused on some saves. He clearly had a hard time tracking the puck for most of the night and his puck control struggled throughout the contest. At the end of the night, though, it was a typical Niemi night: nothing flashy while getting the job done. Your move, Stalock.
Captaincy
As updated in yesterday’s blog, Thornton, Marleau, Pavelski and Vlasic will all rotate with the ‘A’ on their sweater for what seems to be the foreseeable future. Nothing the Sharks said suggests there will be a captain at all this season which leads me to assume that everyone still thinks Joe Thornton is the captain. I think it’s highly dysfunctional to take the letters off of two of your best players only to return letters a few months later. To me, Wilson failed in his attempt to oust both of the Sharks top tier players and this is admittance that he and McLellan made a mistake. In any event it seemed irrelevant last night while the Sharks were beating up on the Kings.
Mirco Mueller
Mueller played a fantastic first NHL game, playing 17:54 TOI while adding a hit, two blocked shots and a +1 rating skating alongside Brent Burns. Mueller was involved in a couple scrums at the Sharks net after the Kings players made contact with Niemi and wasn’t afraid to get in there right away. It was a promising night for the Sharks top defensive prospect and more games like those will all but assure he stays beyond the stay-or-go rookie date.
Thanks for reading.
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