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Sharks tap into their reserves, even series
By Jeremy Harness April 16, 2010 |
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SAN JOSE - Major resolve and guts kicked in for the Sharks on Friday, a night that saw more than a fair share of misfortune, bad calls and dreadful goaltending for most of the night. Staring in the face of another 0-2 deficit in an opening-round playoff series in the closing minutes of regulation, the Sharks persevered. And along the way, they got some breaks of their own. As he was skating across the net toward the left wing in the final minute of the third period, Joe Pavelski leaped over Colorado center Adam Foote and simultaneously had a shot hit him in the leg. As he landed, the puck came to rest at his feet, and he then fired it over goalie Craig Anderson’s shoulder to tie the game with 31.3 seconds left in regulation before Devin Setoguchi’s overtime goal gave the Sharks a 6-5 victory and evened the series at a game apiece. “It seemed like everything that could go wrong did go wrong (earlier in the game),” said Setoguchi, who also scored in the second period. “(But) every time bad luck happened, we kept going.” He’s one guy who knew a thing or two about redemption after Friday. He was denied another goal in the third period when he made contact with Anderson while twisting his body and poking the puck past the goal line, prompting referee Marc Joannette to wave off the goal and nail Setoguchi with a two-minute goaltender interference penalty. “The explanation to be was, ‘If it were to happen to (Nabokov), you guys would be upset,’” he said. “It’s a bad rule, (but) a rule is a rule.” Another is Nabokov, who was dreadful in net for the first two-plus periods, giving up five goals on Colorado’s first 13 shots, including goals after not securing the rebound as well as one with no traffic in front of him. Not exactly a recipe of playoff success there. Granted, the first Colorado goal was scored when veteran defenseman Rob Blake’s attempt to clear the puck wound up into his own net at 1:10 of the first period. The Sharks didn’t help Nabokov much by letting down on defense, such as allowing Chris Stewart to break away and score in the second period. Despite all of that, Nabokov regained his form in the third period, as he helped kill off a two-man Avs advantage in the third and kept the net clean in the overtime period. “We have all the confidence in the world in him,” said Scott Nichol, whose goal at 19:45 of the second tied the game at 4-4. “He didn’t get down on himself, (and) he made some big saves.” The Sharks were clearly the more physical team, out-hitting the Avalanche by a wide margin throughout the game and including a few highlight hits along the way. To soften up goalie Craig Anderson, they were also very aggressive going to the net. However, Nabokov’s struggles as well as some bad breaks kept the Sharks down and on the verge of another collapse for most of the night. On Blake’s own-goal, for instance, the puck deflected off of Marc-Edouard Vlasic’s mouth and into the net That didn’t exactly get the Sharks off on the right foot, but they bounced back, after several scoring chances fell by the wayside, when Manny Malhotra tied the game by ramming a rebound in past Anderson from the corner. For all the momentum that had swung the Sharks’ way during the latter stage of that first period, it got slammed back in their face when a turnover in the first minute of the second gave Chris Stewart a breakaway, which he used to beat Nabokov to give Colorado back the lead. The Sharks tied it back up when Blake put it into the opponents’ net this time at 3:43, but they gave it right back less than a minute later when Milan Hejduk beat Nabokov at the 4:08 mark. Three minutes later, Setoguchi reacted to a loose rebound in the corner of the net before Anderson could and poked it in. Nichol and Brandon Yip then traded goals to send the teams into their locker rooms with a tie score. Early in the third, Stewart scored his second goal of the game when he converted a 2-on-1, putting the Sharks in a one-goal deficit that was almost destined to stick until Pavelski’s heroics in the final minute. |
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