Last night was a big win against a struggling team. I said in my previous post that the Stars are better than their record indicates and they played a good game. Limiting Tyler Seguin didn’t work out so well as the superstar notched his 6th career hat-trick, 5th since joining Dallas, driving the Stars offense.
Thoughts On The Game
Alex Stalock played a solid game between the pipes. He made a lot of good, positional saves; the saves that the Sharks expect from their goaltenders. The Seguin goal that bounced off a player and found its way home was one that Stalock could do nothing about so it was a great performance in goal on a night that saw 40 shots come his way.
Brent Burns was fantastic offensively again so I’m waiting for the Burns-To-Forward nonsense to get fired up. He’s a great puck mover from the back end and while his overall defensive play isn’t elite I’m willing to say his ability to exit with the puck and control the play in the offensive zone is definitely elite.
Demers/Irwin were torched all night long. There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight for the Sharks defensive struggles so there has to be something done. If Doug Wilson doesn’t want to make a trade then he should start looking for Taylor Fedun’s number. Fedun had a good camp and he certainly can’t perform any worse than some of the defensive displays we’ve seen through the season so far.
Antoine Roussel
I hold Roussel to the same high standard I hold Dan Carcillo, Brad Marchand and Brendan Gallagher. The difference between Roussel/Carcillo and Marchand/Gallagher is that, usually, the former will fight instead of cowering behind the protection of a linesman or referee like Marchand and Gallagher would after a cheap shot.
Last season Roussel had 10 scraps, in 2012-2013 he had 13 combined between the NHL/AHL.
Stalock made a nice sell, I’ll give him that, but there was still deliberate contact regardless of how much, or little, Stalock would have flailed. I have always been of the thought that goaltenders that want to wander should be fair game in the regular context of the play. This wasn’t regular context; this was a Roussel being a rat and taking a shot at a goaltender that could have been avoided.
Nothing positive was going to come from this play for the Stars so I have no idea why Roussel would even think it was a good idea with under a minute left and down a goal. Realistically I have no idea why Ruff even had him on the ice. I figured Dallas would be looking to score a goal.
When the crowd came over Roussel, a fighter, neglected to throw any punches or drop either of his gloves until the linesman had intervened and had a grasp on Justin Braun. The sucker punch that followed was disgusting and I’m sure the Sharks have taken a number to rectify this injustice during the next meet.
Needless play at a critical time for the Stars. I’m sure he didn’t get any high fives for his late game contributions.
Blackhawks
The Blackhawks are the NHL’s leading Corsi% team. Like the Stars, the Blackhawks are better than their record indicates.
Line matchups will be on the forefront again as the Sharks try to combat a powerful offense. Corey Crawford will be in the cage for the Blackhawks, the Sharks goalie is still TBD. It could go either way with the back-to-back consideration leaning toward Antti Niemi and the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately leaning towards Stalock.
Keys to the Game
Limit East-West Cycling
The Blackhawks are a talented team and when a talented team can cycle the puck all over the offensive zone in an East to West manner it usually leads to trouble for the defending team.
The Sharks have to plug the cross-ice lanes and keep the puck to the outside.
The downfall to this is the puck going back to the hands of Duncan Keith, but you have to pick your battles. Would you rather a low percentage shot from the point, or a high percentage shot from inside the circles after a pass pulled everyone out of position?
Score First
The Hawks have allowed the fewest goals in the league to date so digging a hole against them isn’t going to work out too well.
San Jose needs to come out flying and grab a lead early so the Hawks can’t revert to protecting the score.
If the Sharks can get rubber on Crawford early and often they have the talent to have a goal or two get in which will force the Hawks defenders to take more chances than they usually would.
Don’t Play Quenneville’s Game
Todd McLellan is going to have to coach aggressively. Constant player movement on the bench will be required tonight as one of the top two coaches (Sutter being the other in there for me) will be looking to secure favorable line matchups.
It’s up to McLellan to combat that better than he has so far this season. While you’d ideally like to roll four lines the Sharks won’t be able to do that tonight. McLellan has to recognize that his fourth line has been horrific and simply cannot keep pace with Chicago.
Sheltered zone starts should be a high priority for the fourth line with minimal in-action line changes that see them come out. At least if they start in the offensive zone there’s a chance their shift could be over by the time things get too hairy.
Puck drop is an early 7pmET(4pmPDT) start.
Thanks for reading.