Sharks vs. Penguins, Game 3: Diagramming Joonas Donskoi’s overtime winner

By now you’ve seen this goal a few times, but I don’t think you’ll mind a more elongated look at the first game-winning Stanley Cup Final goal in San Jose Sharks history, right?

Let’s take it from the top. This whole play starts because Melker Karlsson, who is both without his stick and one of his gloves, is able to get the puck back around the boards before sprinting away to the San Jose bench.

The puck rims all the way around the boards to Joonas Donskoi while Chris Tierney slides down to the goal line in anticipation of Donskoi’s pass. This is a great, heads up play by Tierney — once he sees he can’t get to the puck, he checks Donskoi and moves to a soft area.

Donskoi throws the puck right back to Tierney and skates by him while Tierney redirects the puck back around the boards towards Donskoi. This play works perfectly and Donskoi now carries the puck around the net.

Seeing how far away both Evgeni Malkin and Justin Schultz are from Donskoi when he gets the puck, it’s actually rather impressive they got all the way back across the ice in time. Matt Murray is already moving towards the right post, trying to seal it as he anticipates a wraparound attempt.

It’s hard to see here what the Penguins could have done differently. Two Penguins are at least in front of Donskoi and Murray seems to have the short-side of the net covered. But Donskoi sees that itty bitty window over Murray’s right shoulder and makes it count.

This comes just after the puck hits the crossbar — you can barely see the blur going down behind Murray’s back in this frame. Donskoi, with two Penguins in front of him and Murray sealing up nearly all of the net, found the 5 percent of daylight available to send the fans home happy.

In a game of inches (or centimeters, for our international readers), shots like this can make the difference between a win or a loss. We love you Donskoi, and you too, Finland.