A San Jose Sharks Blog

Currently, in the Northwest Division, four out of the five teams are sitting in playoff position. The Wild are on top with 87 points while Vancouver, Calgary, and Colorado each have 84 points. With a handful of games left in the season, the Western Conference's top eight can change at any time. However, if San Jose grabs the 2nd spot and Minnesota settles in at the 7th position, we should have a pretty exciting series.

Everytime the Sharks took the lead, the Wild came back with a goal of their own. The most painful goal for Team Teal was the one that came with 29 seconds left in the game. Again, San Jose showed its inability to close out a game as Marian Gaborik scored his 2nd powerplay goal of the game and his 38th of the season.

After 60 minutes of play, both teams went into overtime looking to take the final point. Though there were only three shots on net the, the extra five minute period was very interesting. In fact, at 1:52, both teams received two-minute minors which led to a 3-on-3 scenario. There seemed to be a ton of room out there, but neither team scored and this brought the game to the shootout.

In the shootout, coach Ron Wilson went with his regulars: Pavelski, Marleau, and Roenick. First, Joe "Mr. Automatic" Pavelski roofed one past the Minnesota goalie to grab the lead. On the other end of the ice, Nabokov made the save and kept the one goal advantage intact. Next, Marleau skated in, but failed to convert. Unfortunately, the Wild tied things up again when the shot on Nabokov somehow trickled in past the goal line. With the shootout tied, JR stepped up and ripped a wrister past the glove of Niklas Backstrom. With the one goal lead, Number 20 locked down the final point with a solid save.

Overall, a very exciting game. It's good to know that the Sharks can still win a game when the top line doesn't get a goal. In fact, as everyone knows, we're going to need goals from every line if we want to go deep in the playoffs.

Notes:

• Curtis Brown returned to the lineup and made an immediate impact registering an assist and a sweet backhanded goal.
• The signing of JR continues to pay off as the winger scored his 12th goal of the season and the game winner in the shootout.
• Douglas Murray made yet another huge open-ice hit. I actually felt sorry for the guy, but he did have his head down. The check put him on the ice AND sent one of his gloves flying.
• Shelley and Boogaard dropped the gloves in the 1st period. I can say this in all honesty, Boogaard is a scary beast. He put a pretty good beating on Shelley, but give Jody his props...he never dropped to the ice.
• There was a scary moment in the game when Torrey Mitchell hit Kurtis Foster from behind and into the end boards on an icing call. Foster was taken away on a stretcher after spending 12 minutes on the ice with medical and training staff. He sustained a broken leg and was scheduled to go into surgery at O'Conner hospital last night.
  
• The Wild went 2 for 3 on the powerplay last night...should we be worried about our penalty kill? Or was it just an off night? Let's hope it's the latter.