Power play powers Sharks to 3-2 victory in season opener
by Mr. Plank on Oct 8, 2010 5:22 PM PDT
in Sharks Game Recaps
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PrintA deadly Sharks power play helped guide the Sharks to their first win of the 2010-2011 season earlier today, with rookie Logan Couture, Torrey Mitchell, and newly minted Captain Joe Thornton all contributing on the scoresheet.
The Sharks productive powerplay provided momentum for the Sharks all day long, capitalizing twice throughout the tilt and generating many more opportunities. Puck movement was crisp, and the "Globetrotters syndrome" of 2009-2010 was nowhere to be seen. Players were skating off the puck and driving hard to the net, forcing the Columbus penalty killers to be quite active in their own zone. Jason Demers, Dan Boyle, and Douglas Murray led the Sharks blueliners with the most TOI in this situation, with Joe Pavelski typically playing the point on the majority of shifts. It's a position he has been asked to play in seasons past, and one he clearly looked comfortable in throughout the game.
After Steve Mason gave up two soft goals to let the Sharks take a 2-0 lead midway through the first period, the 22 year old netminder buckled down and stymied many San Jose chances from all portions of the ice. This allowed the Blue Jackets to fight back early, and in a span of fifteen seconds, notch two goals to tie the game before the first twenty minutes were complete.
The second and third periods saw some excellent goaltending from both respective goalies, with Antti Niemi and Mason both making some excellent saves at key junctures of the game. Niemi was particularly brilliant throughout this time frame, sliding from post to post and taking away the lower portion of the net. His rebound control was spotty here and there-- good at times, questionable at others. This will obviously be a note to look forward as the season progresses along, but for the most part the defense was able to limit second chance opportunities through deft stickwork and body positioning.
However, the defense did struggle down low for parts of the game-- there was too much east-west passing allowed below the circles, which forced Niemi to be very active in getting across his crease to make saves. They controlled the rush fairly well, pushing players to the outside and taking away the middle of the ice, but once Columbus gained control of the puck in the zone, communication seemingly eroded. Chalk it up to the first game of the season, but that must definitely improve throughout the year before the Sharks match up against a higher powered offensive team.
The game was fairly sloppy-- penalties were a dime a dozen throughout the tilt, with an astounding 20:42 of the game being played with one team having a man advantage. This is something that will likely be corrected as the NHL season wears along, and with the Sharks penalty kill picking up where they left off last year (6/7 on the night), the hope is that these mistakes will be rectified.
Logan Couture looked very good skating between Patrick Marleau and Dany Heatley today, and saw a lot of power play time (4:24) with various partners. That line seemed to be the best of the night in terms of opportunities generated, with all three other lines also pumping shots on net as well. Ryane Clowe was his usual self on the cycle, and although Thornton failed to pick up an assist, he set up a couple of players with brilliant opportunities in tight. A nice backhand touch pass to Patrick Marleau above the crease was stopped by Mason, and a forehand feed to Dany Heatley jammed the sniper as he put it just wide. Devin Setoguchi and Jamie McGinn had below average games, and will be counted on to be more effective when playing with Thornton if they hope to stay on his line when the team returns to San Jose.
All in all, a solid game for San Jose. Two more points on the table tomorrow as they attempt to complete the sweep in Stockholm. All indicators point to Antero Niittymaki getting the start in the tail end of a back to back on Saturday, as the organization has expressed their desire to keep goaltending starts low and work both netminders in a competitive tandem.
It's great to have hockey back in business.
Go Sharks.
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God i missed hockey. It was a good game and most of the Shark players i was really hoping would do well today scored goals.
Jason Demers looked awesome today. I didn’t know he could hit like that. His play today gave me hope that maybe he could have some real success filling in for Blake on the 2nd pairing with Vlasic.
I didn’t think Niemi looked all that great. I understand he’s not going to make flashy acrobatic type saves like Nabby did but he just looks like he’s still too accustomed to playing with the Chicago Blackhawks defense who would clean up everything in front of the net for him; he also looks extremely vulnerable to high shots and I fear the day he faces a high powered offense focusing on getting shots high on him.
Great recap. I’m also in the camp of “not sure Niemi looked great”, but part of that could be biased. Now that the season is here, I need to accept Nabby is gone and Niemi and Niitty are here to stay.
Yay on the 2 pts! The first two in our goal to take over the world. :)
Ever get the feeling we are on a collision course with reality?
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" -- Benjamin Franklin
I’m gonna agree with Khaaz and Angy that I’m not sure Niemi looked great, but he got us a win and it’s early in the season, so I’m not gonna complain.
Other than that, all I have to say is Hockey is like crack. I thought I did a pretty good job this offseason about being without hockey, but now that it’s back I can’t wait until tomorrow’s game. I NEED MORE.
It’s gonna suck after tomorrow having to wait ALL week for another game…
Proud member of the "Bring Back Semenov" Club
I don’t think Niemi looked great, but he seemed to settle down as the game went on. I’ve had my doubts, too, and I know today was just one game, but some of those doubts were tempered.
I actually think it might take a little more time for Niemi to settle in with the Sharks because of his high-rebound style. Communication and familiarity will only improve as the season goes on. There were moments today where you could tell that those elements were a little lacking.
Does Nitty
get the next start?
"Take a deep breath sometimes, a break, and play some hockey."
"Hockey is a great way to take a pause from day-to-day hard work." -- Lt Gen. D.H. Huntoon Jr. (paraphrased)
are they going to start platooning the goalies?
The dude abides
Be cool to animals but F#CK PETA!
"They didnt quiet a building,they quieted a nation!"--WJC January 2010
"Hah! Crom laughs at your four winds!"
Really happy with the win today. Sure there were some areas that very clearly need work, but we didn’t have to score six, some uncommon goal scorers got off to good starts, and we got the W in regulation. I’ll take it any time. Hopefully, Niemi will eventually settle in, but if not, we should be getting a look at Nitty soon, to see what we’ve got there in season mode.
Good game
We started out great, got sloppy, gave up two goals within a minute or two, scored again and won.
Chris Andersen could be in a porno with his 'stache. Too bad he still wouldn't know how to box out.
BTSC proud ENFORCER!!
"No one on this team is Troy Polamalu. When God made him, he touched him a couple of extra times." -Safety Ryan Clark-
FML! FML! FML!
So after a looooong summer without hockey, I’m finally looking forward to today’s game. I set up my COMCAST DVR to record the pregame and game while I spend the day working 10 hours. The only thing getting me through the long day is knowing that I get to come home, order a pizza, sit like a slug on the couch and watch my beloved Sharks start their season…
I finally get home, exhausted, order the pizza and go to turn on the tv. What happens? Well it looks as if there was a power outage!! How does that affect me other than having to reset my clocks you ask? Well my cable box is off as well and when I go to turn it on I get an error message. I can’t even use the DVR to watch anything recorded either! I call Comcrap and speak with CS. He runs a test and determines that I’m not receiving a signal (so no fault of mine, it’s THEIR service problem) and proceeds to tell me that the earliest a technician can come out to look at it is between 10-12 SUNDAY!!! WTF?? Can anyone relate?? Didn’t think so…
Once again, FML
Go Sharks tear
Mike Babcock's wife thinks Joe Pavelski's a STUD!! Enough said.
Dude that blows
I had the power outage here too, but luckily I caught the game live. Hopefully you can catch a stream or at a restaurant tomorrow.
"You would definitely hate the Ducks more than you'd hate the Kings, right?"
"Yeah, definitely," Joe Pavelski
Bummer
That’s bad. Maybe Comcast was ticked that Vs was covering the game instead of them. If they can ping your DVR, makes one wonder if they can find out if the game was in your queue, and zap it.
I burned the game to DVD as I watched it.
"Take a deep breath sometimes, a break, and play some hockey."
"Hockey is a great way to take a pause from day-to-day hard work." -- Lt Gen. D.H. Huntoon Jr. (paraphrased)
That's the thing
They tried to “ping” my cable box but it didn’t respond which concluded that I wasn’t receiving a signal. Maybe I should borrow that DVD!
Anyways, anywhere in Santa Clara that will be showing the game?
Mike Babcock's wife thinks Joe Pavelski's a STUD!! Enough said.
I’m pretty sure Comcast owns Versus…
"If you can accept losing, you can't win." ~Vince Lombardi
Tweet Tweet.
by ZeroIndulgence on Oct 8, 2010 9:33 PM PDT up reply actions
ouch!! that sucks … but hey, can’t you find a place to watch the game tomorrow? and real sorry bout your luck … we WON!!!! tho … least you have that … :)
Ever get the feeling we are on a collision course with reality?
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" -- Benjamin Franklin
I just hope the officiating isn't so nitpicky tomorrow
A lot of the calls seemed to be pretty innocuous on both ends. All the calls kinda threw off the pacing of the game.
"You would definitely hate the Ducks more than you'd hate the Kings, right?"
"Yeah, definitely," Joe Pavelski
I actually thought Niemi looked really solid today. He was really pretty quick post to post, and anything low has no chance of going in the net, which is nice. He’s weak up high, and both goals against him went up…but that’s who he is. Nothing that went in the net looked all that awful on his part…basically, he looked much better than he did in the preseason, better than he did in the SC Finals, and better than I expected him to. If he can play like he did today for the rest of the season, I’d be ok with that.
The Sharks, at least in my pov, looked pretty in sync with one another. Passing was pretty good, they were creating scoring chances. It was hard to get a feel for how this team will look 5 on 5, since this game was never 5 on 5. But all in all, I didn’t feel like there was too much rust on the part of the players.
They were pretty undisciplined, though. And thats the kind of things that get to me. You can’t really blame dumb penalties on it being early in the season. I could blame rust on that, but they looked pretty good overall in that sense. Some of the penalties were soft…the refs seemed to want to give the road crowd plenty of power play gametime. But some of them were dumb, and that needs to be cut out of the game. The PK looked awesome, though.
All in all, a very encouraging start for the Sharks. Let’s get back at it tomorrow!
"If you can accept losing, you can't win." ~Vince Lombardi
Tweet Tweet.
I really didn’t think Niemi looked very good post to post. It may have appeared that way since he can cover nearly the whole bottom of the net by just dropping into the butterfly position, but I don’t think many of us had any doubts about his ability to block shots along the bottom of the net anyways.
He looked especially bad post to post in one moment of the game where Rick Nash had the puck behind the net and he went for a wrap around and Niemi had 10 years to get to the other post but he barely even moved. The puck didn’t end up going in, but only because Nash rushed the shot, probably because he assumed that he had already given Niemi too much time to get to the other post.
I agree with WeeDogger, I think he looks kind of clumsy on his skates.
Really though, he stopped 30 of 32 shots so i’m happy; i’m just worried about what’ll happen when Niemi’s facing a better/smarter offense.
Goaltending
Also of the opinion that Niemi didn’t look that great tonight. It seems to me that he is not too strong on his skates and often looks clumsy, swimming to get in to position for rebounds. We’re definatly going to get roasted a couple of times against strong offensively minded teams, but that is something we’re going to have to deal with. According to the team’s website they will be starting Nitti tomarrow so it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.
Go Sharks!
by WeeDogger on Oct 8, 2010 8:29 PM PDT via mobile reply actions
Good [Enough] Start
I thought Niemi played fairly well actually. His rebound control does make me nervous but I think that is because Nabokov has me used to lots of Butterfly-style glove saves.
The Wallin-Vlasic miscommunication that led to the goal by Umberger was atrocious. I am actually going to put the blame on Pickles for not being aware, but Wallin certainly could have warned him about the forechecker quickly approaching.
Why does Setoguchi fall all the time? Seriously. He skates for a living.
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