6-3 again, Heatley hit deserving of conf call? SJ/DAL PostG

Boy was I relieved to see a 6-3 game go the way of the Sharks last night. I had to go get a drink after the first couple of goals from Dallas, expecting to see the second half of last night's game get dragged on through last night. But the Sharks likely had a headful of T-Mac and Clowey echoing through their skulls as I'm sure that they did their jobs and yelled their brains out at the team. That's what I think makes the Sharks so good on the road.

For whatever reason, the Sharks have performed better on the road. At home, the Sharks are 18-11-5 while on the road they are 22-12-3. The power play suffers on the road, going from 24.1% at home to a mere 20.8% on the road. The PK improves though, from an awful 77.4% at home to a much more respectable 82.6% on the road. This seems to say that the Sharks are winning most of their games on the road at even strength. So what is it that makes the Sharks want to win more on the road?

Inspiration. Luckily, the game against Chicago was some weird anomaly because something lit a fire under their asses last night. When a team is on the road, they have little else to do besides discuss hockey. Go out to eat? With your teammates, you do. Go to sleep, with a teammate sharing a room. Wake up, eat with the team again, practice, go to the game. You fly on a jet with only your team to get to your next road city. The Sharks are without distraction when they're on the road, and that, coupled with feeding off of OTHER teams' fans' boos, they are quite a threat on the road. Remember the Ottawa game? Each Heatley jersey thrown on the ice seemed to turn in to a goal.

Now last night against Dallas was actually a fairly tight game. Each team had an opportunity to play from two goals down, and did so with fervor, swinging the momentum of the game all over the place. It started with Dallas scoring the first 2, at even strength. Big Joe reminded the Stars of who they were playing, and his own team of who they were playing with, and used his big body to hold down the slot for a beautiful deflection. Right then, the game became the Sharks'. SJ tied it up on a 5-3 opportunity which quickly turned in to a 5-2 when one of the Stars' broke his stick. Heater and Pavs made quick work of that. Pavelski remained in Olympic form and came out of the box, immediately won a battle at the corner boards and showed what happens when you WIN those battles, and drive the net. Perfect assist to Clowey who was streaking for Kari with a head full of fire. A similar play to Torrey Mitchell would give the Sharks the 2 goal advantage. For the Sharks though, if there's anything worst than a 1 goal lead, it's a 2 goal lead.

Dallas would go on the power play because of a Patrick Marleau hooking which they made short work of. 4-3 Dallas thanks to the heroics of Jamie Benn, who has been playing some amazing hockey lately. Heatley then called for interference on a hit that I'll talk about in a minute. I'll just say he's having a conference call at 2PM today about it. The PK worked, and then Couture threw the puck over the glass. He says it was tipped, but don't they all? It turned out not to be too bad. Dallas pulled Kari out of net and gave Dallas a 6 on 4. Well a 6-4 is a double edged sword and Jumbo, and then Heatley, made them pay. So while this game ended up being a 6-3 finish, a presumable rout, it really was a tightly played game all night.

Early on in the second period, Douglas Murray ran his shoulder in to the head of Loui Eriksson. Eriksson left the game. Murray says he was simply playing the body, Ott called it prototypical of the big guy. Ott did what any good teammate would do and fought Murray. Unfortunately for Ott, he forgot to ask Murray and got an instigator 2 minute and a game misconduct. Now as unfortunate it is for any player to get hurt in a game, and I don't wish it on any player in the league, the Murray hit was well timed. Dallas had just scored 2 goals in the first, and there was nary a swing the Sharks way for the opening frame. Murray did what should've been done in the game against Chicago. He ramped up the physicality and threw himself in to an opponent, and cause some serious frustration. Ott was out for the game, and from a penalty-less first, the second saw a 5 on 3 for the Sharks in the second period. In the last 5 minutes of the game, Heatley got called for interference. According to Ott, and some higher-ups in the league, apparently, Heatley is deserving of a conference-call-style hearing. It occurs at 2Pm today, so I'm not sure what the verdict is, but it concerned the nature of his hit that got him the interference call. Darren Dreger is saying, via twitter:

"Camera angles on Heatley hit aren't great, but in slo-mo, it appears Heatley's forearm glances off Ott's high chest...shoulder area first.."

A lot of what Dreger says about hockey is canon, so I'm assuming that nothing is gonna happen to Heatley, except T-Mac might warn him to be careful with the high elbows. Ott was quoted, concerning the hit:

"We're going to have guys that are going to be icing heads now. You only have one brain, so let's honestly start figuring something out... My head's killin' me from this light right now from Dany Heatley's little cheap shot."

Hopefully Ott didn't suffer any real injury. Maybe Ott will clean up his game now that he's one of the guys complaining about dangerous hits. Charges Gregory Campbell. Ott leaves feet to hit Jordan Leopold. Leopold was out for multiple games with a head injury. I guess Ott is doing his job of agitating, since he's even agitating me, and I don't have to play against him. But, I have to take his cries for help from the league concerning the Heatley hit with a grain of salt, sorry Otter. Oh, remember this hit after the whistle? Ott hits Heatley late.

Thanks for reading,

aeisner