By the numbers: Game 58 vs. Tampa Bay

Scoring Chances

San Jose

Even Strength Scoring Chance Save Percentage: 80.0%

Tampa Bay

Even Strength Scoring Chance Save Percentage: 94.1%

Period-by-Period Summary

-As I said on our recap last night, scoring chances for this game were real weird, with the Sharks outchancing the Lightning 18-6 through the first two periods, then getting outchanced 6-9 in the third, when you would've expected score effects to take over

-A big reason for this was Stamkos. Stamkos finished the game with five scoring chance "points," and three of those came in the third period, after a pretty quiet first two periods from him

-Though they didn't do as much as Stamkos, Tampa's second line did some work in the offensive zone too, with both Palat and Kucherov finishing their nights with three scoring chance points

-Despite Tampa's second line doing a good job of generating offense, they weren't quite able to handle their matchup against Couture's line, and every member of Tampa's second line had at least a -3 scoring chance differential in this game (Kucherov had a -5!)

-Speaking of Couture's line, they were fantastic in the offensive zone last night, with Marleau finishing his night with four scoring chance points, and Nieto finishing with five. That line ultimately ended up conceding a lot of scoring chances against, but in the offensive zone, they were on fire last night.

-In Vlasic's first game back, the first D pair had a pretty good game, as Vlasic finished the game with a +4 scoring chance differential, and Burns finished with a +3, along with picking up five scoring chance points

-Chris Tierney assisted on two SJ scoring chances in this game en route to finishing his night with a +4 SC differential

-James Sheppard had another pretty dreary game, being on the ice for zero SJ scoring chances for at evens. Andrew Desjardins was also on the ice for zero scoring chances for either team, which is why his name isn't presented in the table above. The fourth line's seen a lot of changes the past few games, so it's entirely possible all it needs is some consistency in order to find some success, but I think it's about time Tyler Kennedy got another chance to be a part of that consistency.

Zone Entries

San Jose

Tampa Bay

-A big reason why Couture's line was able to find so much success last night was their work through the neutral zone. Both Marleau and Nieto put up good numbers (Nieto's especially are really good), and Couture carried the puck in quite a bit, even if the team wasn't able to generate a lot of shot attempts off of his entries.

-The third line also put up some pretty solid numbers, as Tierney had another good game in the neutral zone, and Wingels did just about as well as we've come to expect from him

-Pavelski had a pretty good game, putting up easily the best zone entry numbers of anyone on the first line

-The fourth line only generated seven entries in this game, and six of those came courtesy of Barclay Goodrow. The fourth line hasn't been fantastic the last few games, but I think credit is due to Goodrow, who's really doing all he can to make that line click.

Entry Targeting

San Jose

Tampa Bay

-Dillon put up solid numbers, only allowing carry-ins on a third of the entries attempted against him

-Tennyson also put up some very good numbers, in sharp contrast to Burns, who was very hit-or-miss in this game, either allowing a carry-in against or denying the entry attempt on seven out of the eight entries attempted against him

-Funny game for Melker Karlsson, as he was targeted more often than Irwin or Hannan were

-Two of the new defensemen Steve Yzerman acquired for the Lightning this offseason--Jason Garrison and Anton Stralman--were very good at stifling San Jose in the neutral zone in this game, as those two combined to only allow seven carry-ins against on twenty-five entry attempts against

-Of the rest of Tampa's D-corps, Witkowsi was the only one to put up pretty good numbers, though part of that is definitely just that Hedman and Nesterov weren't targeted that often (especially since Nesterov was basically jumping into every rush Tampa had last night)

Zone Exits

San Jose

Tampa Bay

-Pavs did fantastic on zone exits in this game, not only managing three successful breakouts, but also turning the puck over zero times

-Andrew Desjardins did not experience that same amount of success, as he finished his night having turned the puck over five times on six D-zone puck touches

-Karlsson and Nieto put up pretty good zone exit numbers, but their high turnover counts weren't by any means preferable

-Tennyson did a very good job exiting the zone in this game, jumping into the rush, and amassing two carry-outs during the game

-Tenner's efforts, however, were outdone by Burns, who managed seven successful breakouts in this game, which I'm pretty sure is a record for Shark defensemen this year. Burns also only turned the puck over three times, as he put up very impressive all-around zone exit numbers.

-Although he didn't quite match what Burns was able to do, Stralman had a very good game on zone exits, managing four successful breakouts

-Kucherov had a bit of a disappointing season last year from a scoring standpoint, but he's put up amazing numbers this year. He's definitely one of the most exciting twenty-one year olds in the league to watch, and a big part of that is his work with the puck, some of which we got to witness on his zone exit attempts in this game, as he turned the puck over zero times, and managed three successful breakouts in this game.

-Tampa's top line really did awesome exiting the zone, as that line only turned the puck over two times, and they managed sixteen successful breakouts, thanks in large part to the excellent work of Alex Killorn

How did Trade Deadline Targets do in This Game?

-Desi and Shep, two names that have been mentioned (though very rarely) in trade rumors, did not do well in this game. Hannan also had a pretty questionable game after having one of his best games of the season against Arizona on Friday.

-I'm not sure Tampa will really be selling off any parts of their team come trade deadline time, seeing as how they're well-poised for a long playoff run, and they don't have any captain's complaining about not making Team Canada's initial Olympic roster. If anything, tonight's game showed how little they need to make moves, as even without the services of defensemen Matt Carle and Radko Gudas, their D were relatively solid last night. I'm not gonna say that they couldn't have done well getting themselves one Cody Franson, but despite the talk of Tampa searching for a top-four defenseman, I think last night's game showed that they're fine without getting a new one. If however, they're looking for a veteran presence to have in their locker room, I got a real good candidate for them...