Pittsburgh Penguins celebrate as they gather around goalie Matt Murray after defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 in Game 7 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals, Thursday, May 26, 2016, in Pittsburgh to ad.
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Wednesday’s game, a 5-2 Sharks win that put the team into the Stanley Cup final for the first time, had a 6.1 overnight rating on NBCSN in the Bay Area to make it the highest-rated Sharks game ever televised on an NBC network.
The rating eclipsed the former record of a 5.6 rating that was set May 16, 2010 when the Sharks played the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 1 of that year’s conference final.
Jonathan Drouin scored his fifth goal of the playoffs for the Lightning and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 37 saves, but it wasn’t enough to send Tampa Bay back to the Cup Final for a second straight year.
In San Jose, we’re familiar with Martin Jones’ story.
In San Jose, two Sharks – Thornton and Patrick Marleau – are making their first Stanley Cup Final appearance in their historic, most likely Hall of Fame, 18-year careers. “I’m getting more and more chemistry with my linemates as time goes on, and if you get some chemistry with Geno, good things are going to happen”. Meanwhile Matt Murray has a almost identical 2.22 GAA with a.924 save percentage.
Last night, he was practically speechless about going to the Stanley Cup Final he was so over come with joy. At other times, it’s been clear he’s a first year starter, giving up goals shot from the goal line and not protecting his posts as well as he could.
If you were to take a look at the National Hockey League standings on February 5, just over two months before the postseason began, you’d see the Pittsburgh Penguins on the outside of the playoffs looking in and the San Jose Sharks in the playoffs by a mere two points. The most important stat, however, are the 12 wins. The 12 wins needed to reach the Final, the 12 wins that Irbe, Niemi, and Nabokov weren’t able to get for the Sharks.
Boughner, a former defenceman, who is now in his first season with the San Jose Sharks as an assistant coach, played three seasons with the Soo Greyhounds from 1988-1991, scoring 26 goals and 97 points through 177 career games. “Just having each other’s back out there, working for each other”.
“Paul’s a pain in the (butt) to play against”, Sharks’ forward Joel Ward said.
The Sharks’ forwards, especially the top line of Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski and Tomas Hertl, which collected a combined 17 even-strength points in the Western Conference finals, has proved to be more than a handful for Olympic-caliber defensemen like Drew Doughty of the Los Angeles Kings, Shea Weber and Roman Josi of the Nashville Predators and Alex Pietrangelo and Kevin Shattenkirk of the St. Louis Blues throughout the playoffs. His 2014-2015 season made it apparent that he was ready for the next level, but would his hot play continue against NHLers like it did minor leaguers?
“The last couple of years you finally begin to see that light”. In just 13 regular season starts, Murray’s numbers were impressive nonetheless: 9-2-1 with a 2.00 GAA and.930 save percentage.
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When Sullivan was finished, Murray stood up and left without so much as a word. So far, it’s been a great fit. A brief hiccup came in Game 4 against the Lightning, when he was pulled for Fleury after allowing four straight goals to start the game. Sullivan had explained himself so thoroughly that Murray didn’t see the point of dragging it out. In reality the Sharks are nearly a carbon copy of the Penguins and this series is a pick’em. Fleury’s line? 15 saves on 19 shots. Not good. In result, Sullivan went back to the rookie for two huge elimination games and the move paid off as the Penguins came back to win the series.
