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Red Wings rally to beat Sharks
By Dave Fowkes February 2, 2010 |
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(San Jose, CA) -- The Detroit Red Wings scored four unanswered goals in a come from behind win over the San Jose Sharks. After getting up 2-0 in the first period, the Sharks let the Red Wings take control and come back for a 4-2 win. Dan Cleary, Henrik Zetterberg, Dan Meech and Patrick Eaves scored goals for Detroit and Jimmy Howard made 32 saves for the win. Joe Thornton scored both Sharks goals and Evgeni Nabokov made 33 saves for the Sharks. “That is the quality of the team,” Coach Todd McLellan said. “They are relentless. They come after you hard. They put a lot of pressure on our young defensemen which is obviously would have been a game plan of theirs.” The difference for the Red Wings was clearly the power play. Given six chances they scored twice. The game tying goal coming on a 5-3 advantage after Rob Blake sent a puck over the glass for a delay of game penalty. Blake certainly took full responsibility for the play, “You just have to make sure you don’t put the puck over the glass.” “That is a tough break,” Thornton said. “Those things happen. You give skilled teams a 5-3 and usually they are going to make you pay. And they did. That probably turned the game around. It was just a misfortunate play by Rob, but things like that happen sometime.” The Sharks would go 0-3 on their power play opportunities. The Sharks clearly missed defensemen Dan Boyle and Marc-Edouard Vlasic who sat out with injuries. At least one of the youngsters, Derek Joslin and Joe Demers, was on the ice for each goal. “The six that were in there, they hunted us down pretty good,” Coach McLellan said. “Their forecheck was real good. There was a point in the game where they decided to get the puck in behind us and came after us. When we did handle their forecheck we didn’t leave them. They caught us from behind and they were back in our zone. As a result we played in our zone more, our forwards did not get the puck in their hands as much as we needed to be.” It looked good early for the Sharks. Dany Heatley shot the puck from the boards that hit Howard on his shoulder. Before he could control the rebound Thonton knocked the puck into the net. Goal two came from the same duo. Heatley took the shot from the blue line this time. Howard made a kick save. With a defender in between him and the puck, Thornton was able to grab the puck on one side of the defender and pass it to himself on the other side of the defender to push it in for his second goal of the night. Detroit got on the board with just over five minutes left in the first period. Valtteri Filppula did a great job earning the puck along the boards. As he worked the puck free behind the net he made a back handed centering pass to Dan Cleary in front of the net for the easy goal. Then came the big 5-3 goal. Nabokov made two point blank saves but the second one was a kick save that went right on the stick of Zetterberg who sent the puck right into the net between the post and leg of Nabokov. In a very active first period, the Sharks outshot the Red Wings 16-11. The second period was much more defensive. Neither team was able to get the puck in the net. The Red Wings out shot the Sharks 12-9. The Wings seemed to have the overall advantage. The Sharks did not get a shot on goal for the first eight minutes of the period. They finally got some scoring chances on the power play and again toward the end of the period. The Red Wings were close on a number of opportunities but could not quite connect. They also did a better job of controlling the puck in the offensive zone. The Red Wings took the lead nearly five minutes into the third period. On the power play, Derek Meech took a shot from behind the goal crease that ricocheted off of Nabokov’s left knee to squeeze into the goal. Detroit did not let up. Midway through the period they made it 4-2. Brian Rafalski made a great cross ice pass from the blue line to Patrick Eaves at the goal line who was behind Nabokov and easily put the puck into basically an empty net. The Sharks hit the road for a game in St. Louis on Thursday night. GAME NOTES: This was the one and only home game for the Sharks in the month of February. The Sharks hit the road while the SAP Open Tennis Tournament moves into Tank, then the NHL shuts down for two weeks for the Olympics. Tomas Holmstrom returned to the Red Wings lineup after missing 13 games with a broken foot. Jamie McGinn was recalled for the game and skated. Jody Shelley was a scratch. |
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