The San Jose Sharks followed up the team’s first win of the season with a quick second one, beating the Los Angeles 4-2 last night. It was sweet revenge after Thursday night’s 3-2 loss to the Kings. This time, instead of rallying to try and come from behind, the Sharks took the initial lead and then pulled away in the end.
The Sharks were not about to let what happened last Thursday happen again. San Jose jumped on the Kings, keeping the possession pretty even at even-strength play as you can see from Natural Stat Trick’s Corsi at even-strength chart.
While the Kings pushed back hard in the second period, outshooting the Sharks 18-5 in that middle frame, the Sharks weathered the storm. The team was lucky to come out of the second tied at one apiece, thanks in part to strong netminding by Vitek Vanecek.
Vanecek stopped 26 of 28 shots and dealt with a lot of traffic in front of him. Notice how the two goals scored by the Kings were in high-danger areas of the ice.
This was the goaltender’s first win in a teal jersey.
While Vanecek was good, the first star of the game goes to Jake Walman, who finally broke through for the Sharks’ defense. Number 96 scored the team’s first goal of the game and assisted on two others. Walman has eight points this season and six points in his last two games.
The sixth period
One thing that was noticeable about this iteration of the Sharks versus previous iterations was the team’s ability to sustain its play into the third period of a game after playing the night before.
The third period of last night’s game was the team’s sixth period of hockey in less than 27 hours. Despite that, the Sharks seemed to turn it on in the “sixth” period, outshooting the Kings 8-2 in the final frame.
San Jose also created a majority of the scoring chances in that frame, having the team’s best period of the three. According to Natural Stat Trick, the team’s Corsi For percentage for the third period was 58.82%.
The hard work and competition during training camp seem to have paid off early in the season. The Sharks “had their legs,” as they say, and took over the third period to secure the win.
Zetterlund taking a page out of Granlund’s book
Fabian Zetterlund seemed to take a page out of Mikael Granlund’s book last night. Zetterlund was all over the ice.
Looking at Natural Stat Trick’s individual event map, you can see that he was laying hits and finding open space. Zetterlund finished the night with three shots on goal and several more that missed the net. Most of them were hard shots, including this one past David Rittich to make it 2-1 Sharks.
ZETTERLUND FOR THE LEAD 🚨 pic.twitter.com/CHRwtCecqW
— Sharks on NBCS (@NBCSSharks) October 30, 2024
Zetterlund now has six goals on the season.
Players’ ice time is something to watch
Some things to watch in terms of ice time. Tyler Toffoli played just 14:51, far less than players like Mikael Granlund, William Eklund and Alex Wennberg.
That said, he did have the game winning goal.
🔥 HOLY TOFFOLI @tytoff16 x #TheFutureIsTeal pic.twitter.com/pc0ErIQjKY
— San Jose Sharks (@SanJoseSharks) October 30, 2024
Other notes:
- Wennberg led all forwards with 20:16 of ice time.
- Jack Thompson played 13:16 minutes in this game.
- Matt Benning played 11:54.
- The player with the lowest ice time was Carl Grundstrom with 8:31, though he did make the most of the time with an assist.
- Will Smith played 11:46, including 2:12 on the power play.
- Mikael Granlund had his scoring streak snapped at seven games. Granlund scored 12 points (5 G, 7 A) over those seven games.
Scoring summary Los Angeles Kings at San Jose Sharks Oct. 29, 2024
First Period
No goals
Second Period
2:20 SJS Jake Walman from Nico Sturm and Carl Grundstrom
3:18 LAK Akil Thomas from Brandt Clarke and Trevor Moore
Third Period
6:25 SJS Fabian Zetterlund from Alex Wennberg and Jake Walman
8:52 LAK Alex Laferriere from Warren Foegele
11:02 SJS Tyler Toffoli from Jake Walman
19:22 SJS William Eklund from Luke Kunin and Mario Ferraro into the empty net
