The good news about the Sharks' first period performance tonight was that they really took it to Anaheim, allowing just one Ducks scoring chance at even strength. The bad news is that chance involved Corey Perry all alone in front of Antti Niemi and predictably resulted in a goal. While Anaheim markedly improved in terms of possession and zone time in the second period, the Sharks were largely able to keep them to the outside and continued to outchance the Ducks.

Thirteen of the Sharks' twenty scoring chances in this game came from either Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau or Joe Pavelski as they walked all over the Ducks' AARP line. Benn Ferriero alone has recorded eight scoring chances over the last two games and has been rewarded with a goal in each of them.

Brent Burns appeared to have an extremely strong game by eye and the chance differential backs that up. Especially notable is the fact that Burns spent more time killing penalties than any other Shark yet the team yielded zero chances against when he was on the ice shorthanded. Another terrific game by Vlasic, which is a line I might as well copy and paste into all of these scoring chance recaps at this point. It's also nice to see Thornton have a strong game after having a rough go of it lately.

Head-to-head scoring chances:

Click to enlarge. The Sharks' top line saw roughly an equal amount of the Ryan Getzlaf and Saku Koivu lines in this one and won their matchups, especially against the latter. Thornton and Pavelski finished positive or tied against every Ducks player they faced. Logan Couture's line, on the other hand, struggled in the time they spent against RPG, suggesting that perhaps Marleau was a significant part of Couture's recent success against opposing top lines.

More stats from the game: Corsi/Fenwick, Shift Charts, H2H Ice Time, Zonestarts, Play-By-Play, Box Score