Scoring Chances: Game 54 vs. Edmonton

Complete scoring chance summary

On-ice scoring chances for and against

Team scoring chance totals

Head-to-head scoring chances

• There are certainly games in which there’s a discrepancy between shot quantity and quality. Part of the purpose of tracking scoring chances is to identify those games. This was not one of those games. Not only did the Sharks launch 32 unblocked shot attempts at the Oilers net from the home plate area, several of those chances were on odd-man rushes and breakaways (Patrick Marleau alone generated chances on a full-on breakaway, a partial breakaway and a 2-on-1), two of them hit the goalpost and six were off rebounds. Full marks to Ben Scrivens (and the hockey gods) for this one.
• As mentioned in the recap, I do think the Sharks, despite controlling play for nearly the entire night, had a difficult time containing the Hall/RNH/Eberle line for Edmonton and the chances bear that out. They ripped the San Jose defense to shreds through the neutral zone on numerous occasions and the Oilers improbably outchanced the Sharks 9-7 with Nugent-Hopkins on the ice at even-strength. The issue for Edmonton is they were outchanced 18-1 at evens with their top center on the bench.
• Hard to overstate how good Marty Havlat was in his return. I’m one of the few people who still defends Havlat but even I wasn’t expecting him to ever be quite this effective again. Granted, it’s hard to take anything that happened in this game all that seriously given the opponent and how spectacularly dreadful that opponent was last night in particular but it’s worth noting Havlat was pretty good against the Blues and Kings in two of his final games prior to his most recent injury. I’m still all for reuniting him with Marleau and Couture when Couture comes back.