A San Jose Sharks Blog

In the first period, the San Jose Sharks had a lot of scoring chances. On two separate occasions, Joe Thornton found himself all alone in front of Jean-Sebastien Giguere with the puck. In tight and under defensive pressure, Number 19 wasn't able to get the puck past the Anaheim goaltender on either attempt. However, the biggest scoring chance of the period was on Milan Michalek's penalty shot granted to San Jose after he had been tripped up by Chris Pronger on a semi-breakaway. On the penalty shot, Michalek skated in very slowly, and tried to beat Giguere to the top right corner. Unfortunately, the Ducks' goalie was up to the task and kept the puck out of the net. To be honest, I thought the shot attempt was a bit pathetic. With his speed, Milan needs to come in strong and force the goalie to move first. At any rate, the Sharks finished the first 20 minutes of the game down by a goal even though they had more scoring chances and shots on net (12).

In the second period, the Sharks started off with a powerplay. Unfortunately, Team Teal couldn't get anything going, and looked pretty sloppy. In fact, the best scoring chance came from Ryan Getzlaf. After a Sharks turnover, Getzlaf skated in all alone on Evgeni Nabokov. Fortunately, he mishandled the puck from four feet out and never got a shot off. Later in the period, the Sharks finally got on the board. While on the penalty kill, Torrey Mitchell tipped an Anaheim pass out of the Sharks' zone and skated hard to track it down in neutral ice. Again, on a semi-breakaway, the Ducks took down the streaking San Jose winger and earned the delayed penalty. However, this time around, Mitchell was able to get back up and put a strong backhander past Giguere making the penalty unnecessary.

In the third period, there was a lot of action, but not much scoring. Both teams had a number of powerplays, but neither squad was able to take the lead. At the end of regulation, the Sharks and Ducks were still tied.

In overtime, the Sharks looked like they were skating through sand. It was clear that they had just played last night and that the legs were gone. Other than Michalek, nobody was using their feet. During the extra five minute period, the majority of the chances belonged to Anaheim, but Nabby stood tough and sent the game to a shootout.

For only the second time this year, the San Jose Sharks won a shootout. It was a very tight battle between Giguere and Nabokov, but Nabby prevailed.

Overall, it was a tough fought game. Given the situation, it appeared that San Jose was on its way to another shootout loss. Fortunately, this time around, San Jose got it done.

Shootout Results:

Bertuzzi    - 1
Mitchell     - 0
Weight      - 0
Pavelski    - 1
Getzlaf      - 0
Setoguchi  - 0
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Perry        - 1
Marleau    - 1
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Ryan        - 0
Rissmiller - 0
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Kunitz      - 0
Thornton  - 1