Somehow, during the two off-days before Game 3, San Jose has to figure out how to better implement its cycle game and spend more time in the offensive zone. The Pittsburgh Penguins, after defeating the San Jose Sharks last night, 2-1, will now see the series shift away to play in California.
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The Sharks sped off the ice, as losing teams tend to do after an overtime goal has been scored against them.
“We have to be quicker”, Couture said.
It sounded so simple.
One game after getting the whiteboard out to diagram plays on the bench, arguably the NHL’s best player this time was setting up the exact play that would hand the Pittsburgh Penguins’ a 2-1 overtime victory over the San Jose Sharks and 2-0 series lead.
“It’s insane”, said Reimer, now the backup goalie in San Jose to Martin Jones.
Burns has the most points by a defenseman regular season and playoff season combined since 1995-97 with 93 total points in 96 games. But this time the disc bounced in San Jose’s favour. “I think we’ve been through a lot of different situations, throughout the season, throughout the playoffs”.
Beyond the stats is the eye test. And right now, the Sharks are not playing up to the Penguins’ level. With their size and skill, especially up front, they were supposed to lay a pounding on the Penguins’ undersized and relatively no-name defence.
They weren’t able to cash in, leaving them trailing after 40 minutes in a game they were clearly outplayed. The centre ice red line is being treated like a border crossing – nothing got past without the Penguins’ approval.
“That’s what we told them on the bench when it went in the net”.
The Sharks, meanwhile, look like their skating in soup. The puck was heading to the net, but Kessel gave it just enough of a nudge to make it count. But it didn’t feel like it, especially with the amount of pucks that were fired at the Sharks’ net.
Joe Pavelski had only one reach Penguins goalie Matt Murray. The Sharks have stuck with starter Martin Jones, pulling him just once. Six of the top nine possession players in the game are from the forwards on the Crosby and Malkin line. “We were 0-0 after the first period, so it got much better, and we got better as the game went on”.
The Sharks might have exorcised some of the demons from their past by making it this far.
“They swarm in the “D” zone”, center Logan Couture said.
San Jose entered the final averaging a playoff-leading 3.5 goals per game. Phil Kessel #81 of the Pittsburgh Penguins (not pictured) would score on the play.
“They’ve done it for us all year long”, said Nieto. “We can’t depend on them every game, so it kind of falls on a 20-man unit to get the job done”. If the first “Mighty Ducks” movie taught us anything, it’s that dwelling on a hit goal post isn’t worth it. We liked how our team was playing. The Kessel, Bonino (game 1 victor scorer) and Hagelin are the most risky line the Penguins have presented in the playoffs, and it worked again and Bonino slipped a pass to Kessel to finish. Sheary never did that and the bad path Braun took caused him to get unintentionally picked on the play. The 23-year-old rookie zipped it over Jones’ outstretched glove for his fourth goal of the playoffs and second of the series. Now, these Penguins are in position for a finals sweep, too, though winning twice in San Jose will be a considerable task.
The Penguins are up 2-0 against the Sharks. But it was hard to execute. Justin Braun, who also went to UMass, scored the Sharks’ only goal with just over four minutes remaining in regulation to force overtime. But, at some point, the stars of the team will need to rise and slam the door shut on San Jose. They put five guys in one quadrant in one area. Murray would cap his night stopping 21 of 22 shots.
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Despite the Sharks edge on the backend, a pair of costly-defensive errors by veteran blue liner Roman Polak led to the opening goal at 8:20 of the second.
