The final score of a 2-1 win in overtime doesn’t do justice to how thoroughly the Penguins dominated this game, controlling the tempo for virtually the entire game while holding a 23-11 shot advantage at the second intermission. The Penguins did it in 2009 against the Red Wings, and the Bruins rallied from 0-2 and 2-3 deficits to beat the Canucks in 2011. He has only generated three shots and no points in the first two games of the series. The puck was heading to the net, but Kessel gave it just enough of a nudge to make it count.
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As for the faceoff debate, Couture said that Crosby won the faceoff clean on the play that led to Conor Sheary’s Game 2 overtime victor, adding that every centre cheats to win draws. They’re going to get some scoring chances. “We’ve been stagnant and standing around and giving them time to check us”. (The cumulative total is 71-48.) But Jones has kept his team in it, despite what at times has been relentless pressure by the Penguins. A lot of one-goal games that for us was like going into a gun fight with a water pistol. In fact they’ve come close to winning both games on the road. The Sharks netminder made a left pad stop on Matt Cullen from high in the slot, adding a right pad save on Kessel to his save total a short while later.
Jones was beaten by Sheary through traffic in overtime following a Sidney Crosby faceoff win. I said we need to tune all that out and make sure we’re ready for Game 3.
It’s the first time the Sharks have been in the finals, but come Saturday afternoon, the California city’s streets will also be lined with black and gold as Penguins fans pile in, hoping to take home Lord Stanley’s Cup.
“You always want to play with the puck more”, said San Jose coach Pete DeBoer, who’s been in worse spots than this.
San Jose’s top line, headlined by Thornton and Pavelski, has actually been effective in keeping the puck through two games, but not in creating scoring chances.
Those kids – a half-dozen fresh faces who spent part of the season in the minors – outskated and outscored the more mature San Jose Sharks in the first two games of the Stanley Cup finals.
“Game 1 was decided in last two minutes, tonight was decided in overtime”, Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said.
While the Sharks were better Wednesday, the sustained push the Penguins were expecting from the Western Conference champions failed to materialize until it was almost too late.
He remembers watching every game, never contemplating for even a second that he might line up next to the Penguins captain in another Stanley Cup final seven years later. “Obviously we’re not coming home under the best circumstances, but we also know that we’re a tough out”. It ended up not being.
“[Crosby] said he was going to win it to me, that’s it”, Letang said after the game (via NHL.com’s Dan Rosen).
The issue doesn’t stem from a lack of help from the officials, the Sharks said Friday, but rather their own inability to string together sustained offensive zone time.
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DeBoer though refused to get sucked into negative thinking.
