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Quick bites: It wasn’t easy but the Sharks won

Posted on by Erika Towne

The San Jose Sharks didn’t play the prettiest of hockey last night. It wasn’t the team’s most complete game of the season. However, the team did what it needed to do in the end and held onto a lead in the third period and beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-1 in regulation.

As you can see from Natural Stat Trick’s game flow chart in all situations, there was never a point in the game where the Sharks’ dominated play.

San Jose spent the first two periods in bend, but don’t break mode and then had to withstand the rush of the Penguins for the entirety of the third.

Yaroslav Askarov earned a well-deserved first star of the game. The 22-year-old stopped 29 of the 30 shots that he faced and finished the night with a .967 save percentage. Natural Stat Trick reports that his expected goals against was 4.62, so he definitely earned his star.

There was this save in close on Michael Bunting:

And then there was Drew O’Connor’s breakaway that Askarov stopped. As if that wasn’t enough, the refs decided that Timothy Liljegren hooked O’Connor just enough at a key moment and awarded O’Connor a penalty shot. Askarov had to do it all over again.

After the game, Askarov was able to laugh about what was going through his mind during that penalty shot.

The Future is Teal

In fact, this whole game was riddled with younger players taking the reins. When the Penguins tied it up early in the third period, it looked as though the Sharks would be doomed to deal with another late collapse and loss.

Then, Macklin Celebrini, on a line with William Eklund and Tyler Toffoli, came through in the clutch and scored what would become the game-winning goal.

And, not to be outdone, it was Will Smith picking up a poor clearing attempt by the Penguins and then saucering it over to Mikael Granlund for the initial lead of the game.

Smith now has a five-game point streak in the works with two goals and four assists in those five games.

Jake Walman was all over the place

Finally, Jake Walman had to have one of the most interesting games of any of the players on the ice. Walman was both the most impactful and least impactful player on the ice for the Sharks.

When you look at HockeyStatCards gamescore impact card, you can see that Walman was horrible on team defense, horrible on team offense and only barely getting by on individual defense and offense. Given that no one else had numbers that bad, you could assume that it was all Walman’s fault.

That said, when you look at Natural Stat Trick’s individual event map for Walman, the guy was all over the place.

Admittedly, you’re not blocking nine shots if your team has the puck, but Walman was also dishing out hits, taking hits, and shooting the puck. For good or bad, he made himself noticeable and that’s on top of the two penalties that he also took for the Sharks.

Scoring summary Penguins at Sharks Jan. 27, 2025

First Period
No scoring

Second Period
7:41 SJS Mikael Granlund from Will Smith

Third Period
0:24 PIT Sidney Crosby from Brandon Rust and Matt Grzelcyk
3:41 SJS Macklin Celebrini from Tyler Toffoli

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