Sharks Coming Home with Five Wins

Sharks 2, Blues 0

Less than a week ago, Brian Boucher was playing goal in the AHL for the Philadelphia Phantoms. After having shoulder surgery, no NHL teams were willing to give him a contract to the big leagues. Well, on Saturday, four days after receiving an NHL contract from the San Jose Sharks and getting his chance to make a comeback, Boucher took a step in the right direction and posted a shutout.

There's no question about it, Evgeni Nabokov has played a lot of hockey this season and can use some rest. Now with Boucher backing up Number 20, San Jose can give their number one goalie some rest and still have a good chance of getting a win.

Not to bag on Greiss and Patzold, but both goalies are not ready for the NHL. Moreover, they simply didn't get the playing time to get any closer to being in NHL form. It must be tough to go up and down throughout the season and not get any consistent playing time. Now with Boucher in the lineup, both goalies can work on their games down in Worcester...a much better scenario.

At any rate, Boucher had a solid game and stopped all of St. Louis' 24 shots on net. Not only that, but according to NHL.com, his performance was worthy of third star of the night. Thanks to goals from Joe Pavelski and Mike Grier, the Sharks had all the offense they needed to win their fifth consecutive game.

Notes:

Pavelski's goal was his 15th on the season and his third in the last three games.
Grier's goal was his 8th of the season, scored while short-handed.
Campbell registered his second assist as a Shark and posted a ton of ice time with 25 minutes and 58 seconds. In addition, Number 51 showed off his skating ability with a pretty slick spin move to evade the St. Louis forecheck.
Jody Shelley dropped the gloves for the ninth time this season when he took on D.J. King in the first period.

A San Jose Sharks Blog