Luongo serves up a gift to Joe Thornton to put San Jose on top after one. Thornton’s playing so well this postseason he’s started developing midi-chlorians. Mind control city.
Outside of that, I think San Jose is going to want to control the pace a little more than they did in the first period. Vancouver looked dangerous in transition for large portions of that period, but credit San Jose’s blueline for shutting down the neutral zone as well as they did. Entries were hard to come by for the Canucks, specifically on that first penalty kill.
Speaking of the blueline, the loss of Jason Demers to what is undoubtedly an injury (he went to the locker room in game seven, and when he came back, was playing on the bottom pairing) is something that can be an issue in a long series. Kent Huskins got beat pretty bad by Janik Hansen off the rush about midway through– look to see what kind of matchups Vancouver tries to get off draws. I assume McLellan will try to shift Huskins primarily on the fly from here on out.
Excellent pace to this game thus far. Both teams banging, both teams skating. This is what hockey is supposed to look like.
As many of you know, Fear the Fin is an independent site run by Sharks fans for Sharks fans. Help keep Fear the Fin independent by contributing to our