- These are sortable now, so click away!
- With Scott Gomez on the ice at even-strength last night, the Sharks outchanced the Canucks 6-1 and outshot them (including misses and blocks, of course) 15-11. When he wasn’t, the Sharks were outchanced 11-4 and outshot 41-25. Even outside the goal, this was his best game as a Shark and it seems like I’ve been typing that sentence with encouraging frequency lately.
- Even more impressive might have been Vlasic’s night. San Jose was outshot by a 2:1 ratio (34-17) at even-strength when he was off the ice, despite the fact that, when he was playing, Vlasic started four more shifts in his own end than in the offensive zone and played quite a bit against the Sedin twins. Brad Stuart obviously figured in prominently here as well.
- Fairly brutal game for Ryane Clowe by the possession metrics considering he was sheltered about as much as Todd McLellan could manage in a game the Canucks dominated territorially (and earned a far greater proportion of the offensive-zone faceoffs). Still, he had a handful of grade-A chances to score his first goal of the season and seemed to be clicking on that depth scoring line with Gomez and James Sheppard, who had a fine game.
- The success of that unit (and the various iterations of it that came to life in the third period) slots the fourth line into the minutes they deserve (read: not many). Handzus never should have been playing much more than nine minutes a night at evens and it appears that, barring further injuries, that’s a decent projection for how much he factors in the rest of the way.
- San Jose was heavily outshot and outchanced through two periods but what might have been the most exciting twenty minutes of Sharks hockey all season in the third period drew them nearly even, at least on the chance count. The team traded eight even-strength chances in that final frame, with the Sharks earning five.
- There isn’t a whole lot left to say about Douglas Murray. He isn’t good and shouldn’t play. Lather, rinse, repeat./
For more information on what these numbers mean, head here for an in-depth explanation of Corsi and here for more details on scoring chances.
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