Your teams on the go or at home.
Advertisement
But their appearance and then sudden disappearance late Thursday night was a reminder of just how close the Penguins were to doing what they’d set out to do and certainly a painful reminder of just how hard the final step will be if they’re to earn their fourth franchise Stanley Cup.
Eric Fehr sealed it with a late goal after San Jose made a strong push in the third. The odds are clearly in their favor.
The Sharks have added confidence because they believe they are winning the goaltending battle.
Despite being the better team throughout the series, the Pens come into Game 6 having lost two of the past three. They won the 1992 Stanley Cup on the road. Goals, however, aren’t coming with equal frequency against San Jose Sharks goalie Martin Jones. “When we’re on our 105th game, I’m just trying to get our game on the right track, get them out there with as much energy as possible and get our execution in the right place”.
“If he doesn’t have that performance we’re not playing another game”, said Sharks coach Pete DeBoer. The Sharks opened the scoring in Game 5 with Brent Burns scoring from the side of the net and that gave San Jose early momentum in their 4-2 win Thursday to force a Game 6. “Our players are well aware of the expectations and the heightened intensity that we need to have in order to get this next win”.
“We flew back home and my leg just kept swelling bigger and bigger”, he said.
The Penguins peppered Jones with 46 shots.
“While it was pretty good, it wasn’t enough”. Deliver another effort like that and they’re washing champagne out of their clothes on Monday morning.
“But I’m looking more at the solution within our room and how we’re killing as opposed to spending a lot of time on their power play”. “Sometimes you don’t get the bounces, but we’re doing a lot of good things”.
The Penguins can’t be getting overly nervous yet. Despite dressing the the hockey equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters, there’s nothing cute about their game. They were able to do that fortunately before it got worse. Jones stopped their final 43 shots on goal.
But the goals were similar enough that you wonder if it was, in fact, a coincidence.
The advantage set the stage for Jones, who spent a large portion of the second period fending off one odd-man rush after another as Pittsburgh’s frenetic speed pinned the Sharks in their end for long stretches. The second came 22 seconds later when Nick Bonino’s shot deflected off of Penguins forward Carl Hagelin in front of the net and got by Jones.
A spare-to-fair National Hockey League goalie will stop everything he sees. But a hot one, like Jones? The best way to mess with his mojo is traffic, and plenty of it. Opportunistic shooting for one. Then, after Pittsburgh quickly tied it back up, the Sharks of 2016 once more proved they are not the Sharks of yore who often would sag under those circumstances. But what they can do is take away the space that helped the Sharks establish their offensive identity for the first time in the series and led directly to their opening tally. They finished the season 1-8-1 under those circumstances to end up 2015-16 with a home record of 18-20-3. “Our shots aren’t getting through – they’re blocking a lot of shots”.
Those same pressures seemed to get to Murray in Game 5 on Thursday night.
Advertisement
Maybe he’s due for a loss after a run like that. But we’re playing a very good opponent and we know that. [He has the] ability to deal with any of the adversity that he faces along the way. Having a team peaking in front of him – one that doesn’t think twice about stepping in front of shots before they ever make it to Murray – helps. “He’s a real competitor”. He energized his teammates with his poised, confident play.
