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Sharks lose in overtime to Chicago
By Dave Fowkes January 28, 2010 |
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(San Jose, CA) -- It was a battle of the two best teams in the NHL and fittingly it would go overtime before finding a winner. Ultimately it would be the Chicago Blackhawks picking up the road win 4-3 over the San Jose Sharks. Troy Brouwer scored two goals including the game winner to lead the Blackhawks while Cristobal Huet made 34 saves. The Sharks rallied from a three goal deficit to tie the game and send it into overtime, but they could not quite finish the Blackhawks. Joe Pavelski scored twice and Manny Malhotra scored once to lead the comeback. Chicago built their lead early by scoring three goals on their first six shots. “We just mad mental lapses that cost us three bad goals,” Malhotra said. “When you put yourself down three to a team like that it is difficult. We were able to come back which is good. But again, we can’t allow ourselves to get down like that.” Pavelski echoed the same thoughts without having a true explanation for the slow start. “We worked all week to scout these guys. We knew what was going on. We just missed a few plays right away. When you are not sharp on a team like this, that has its fourth and fifth guy in on the rush they are going to burn you, and they burned us early.” Coach Todd McLellan was not happy about it. “I take away from this one that the start was not acceptable. We’re all going to talk about how hard we fought, and that we worked our way back into the game but that start was unacceptable. That is not a characteristic of ours. It’s unacceptable.” The overtime win leaves the Sharks still atop the Western Conference with 79 points but the Blackhawks now trail by just one point. Dustin Byfuglien scored the first goal of the game just five minutes into the game. Patrick Kane brought the puck in along the boards. He pulled up and as the Sharks skated past him, he passed to Byfuglienin the middle who ripped a one-timer past Nabokov on his left side. The Blackhawks scored again just over a minute later. Duncan Keith created a turnover at center ice. As the Blackhawks jumped into the zone Troy Brouwer led a 2-on-1 break into the zone. Rather than pass he slapped a shot that beat Nabokov on the stick side for the 2-0 lead. Coach McLellan wasted had seen enough, he called the team’s time out. “No, it was not 30-seconds of yelling,” Malhotra said. “He just wanted to reiterate our game plan and give us a second to take a breather and let us know there was still a lot of hockey left to get back in it. But we had to calm down and get back to our game plan.” The timeout apparently did not help. The Blackhawks made it 3-0 just over eight minutes into the game. Patrick Sharp took a shot off a faceoff, got the rebound and as he skated at Nabokov passed the puck over to Brouwer who put it in on Nabokov’s left side. Rob Blake could not decide whether to play the puck or Brouwer and got caught in between on the play. The Sharks scored a huge goal with 8:08 left in the first. Pavelski got behind the defense and skated right up to the goalie circle where Marc-Edouard Vlasic hit him with the perfect pass and Pavelski glided it past Huet. “Patty (Marleau) made a good play and drew a defender,” Pavelski described. “Pickles (Vlasic) drew another guy. Next thing you know I am just standing there and Pickles made a good play.” Despite all the activity, and three combined power plays, the Blackhawks only outshot the Sharks 9-7 in the first period. The Sharks out hustled, out hit and out worked Chicago in the second period. Yet they went unrewarded until Pavelski scored a power play goal with just over two minutes left in the period. Pavelsk at the blue line took a shot that kind of fluttered along the ice right past a slow reacting Huet on his stick side. Huet acted as if he never saw the shot because of traffic in front of him. “I was just trying to miss that first guy and it clipped him,” Pavelski said. “From there you could see it, it had eyes, the lane was there, it could not get there fast enough. It was just one of those plays.” For the period the Sharks outshot Chicago 19-10. But they still trailed 3-2. The Sharks tied it five minutes into the third period. Rob Blake fired a rocket from the blue line that Malhotra redirected into the net. Then it was Chicago’s turn to call a time out. With a minute and a half left in the third, Joe Thornton got called for a delay of game penalty when he grabbed the puck and pulled it to his body while he was lying on the ice near the net. On the power play Kane hit the post in the final 10 seconds but the puck bounced out of harms way and bot teams earned the point as it went to regulation. The score tied at 3, the shots tied at 37. Brouwer got the game winner. As he skated into the offensive zone he cut across to the middle. Demers lost his edge and went to the ice giving Brouwer a clear look at the net and he beat Nabokov glove side high for the win. The Sharks saw their five game win streak snapped. They host Minnesota on Saturday. GAME NOTES San Francisco Giants Third baseman Pablo Sandoval dropped the ceremonial first puck. With his assist, Jason Demers now has four points (2+2=4) in four games against Chicago this season. Dany Heatley recorded his 600th career NHL point with his assist on Joe Pavelski’s second goal. Marc-Edouard Vlasic extended his point streak to three games (1+2=3) with his first-period assist. Joe Pavelski recorded his ninth multi-point game of the season and third two-goal game. He has four goals in his last two games. |
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