“(We) try to do that every day. But after witnessing the play of the Sharks defense without the injured Justin Braun, perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea for Doug Wilson to give Murray a pair of skates to see what he’s got left in the tank.
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With the Sharks, Goldobin registered a goal and an assist in nine games.
San Jose managed to tie it on the power play when Brent Burns one-timed a lovely Joe Pavelski pass at 14:56 of the first period, but Jonathan Toews roofed a shot past Martin Jones on a 2-on-1 88 seconds later to make it 2-1 Hawks. The Blackhawks outshot the Sharks 11-5 in the first 20 minutes.
The Blackhawks dominated territorial play and the shot clock to escape the opening period with a 2-1 lead. “I think that 6-0 at the National Hockey League level at any time is quite a feat”, Sharks coach Peter DeBoer told reporters. “The reason for that, I don’t know”. “We had our chances but we didn’t do too much with them”. “But they’re a good team”. He mentioned during an interview that the decision to go back and represent Lithuania was based on the fact that his country needed him more than Russian Federation.
“Obviously we’d like to come out of the gate a little bit better”, Sharks goalie Martin Jones said. “We’re playing better and, hopefully, we can play the right way consistently, no matter where we are”. It didn’t seem like there was a lot of room out there for us to make plays, and we ended up turning a lot of pucks over. The Sharks, who next host Calgary on Saturday, play three of their next four at home…. They haven’t won back-to-back games since a four-game run November 1-7, going 3-4-2 since after losing 4-2 at Arizona on Wednesday. Defensive depth is a problem. The Sharks were listed as having 24 giveaways for the game, including 12 in the first period.
“The second period we were flat”, Giroux said.
While their road performance to date has certainly been impressive, the Sharks need to start playing better at home. “We had a good game in Vancouver with nothing to show for it. Today we got rewarded”.
Chicago scored the only goal of the middle period to take a 3-1 lead into the second intermission. The incomparable defenseman’s soft attempt fluttered past Marc-Edouard Vlasic and into the twine past Jones, who never picked up the puck, to give Chicago a 3-1 lead. When someone like Andrew Desjardins also gets into the act, they are even tougher to beat. DeBoer said Braun played with the injury during the trip and “just wasn’t in a good enough place when we got back here for him to play tonight”.
NOTES: The Blackhawks have one regulation loss in their past 10 games against the Sharks….
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“I was able to put my body in some different positions”, said Couture, out since fracturing his right fibula October 15. “The story of the game was the first period and how we started”.
