In the postseason, Kessel leads in points with 19 and in goals with 10. He’s got great hands.
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Justin Braun’s slick stop and shot kept San Jose in the mix and gave the home team some badly needed momentum at the first intermission. “I think everyone tries to do that to the other team”.
The Sharks’ power play went 1 for 3 in the first two games.
Chess match continues: When a coach has the ability to roll four lines consistently, and trusts those combinations to be successful, then getting certain matchups aren’t always as an important in the big picture. Martin Jones yields 2.16 goals per game. “He’s made some timely saves for them”.
Can the Penguins still win in San Jose?
The shot chart, which favoured Pittsburgh by a 42-26 margin, wasn’t really indicative of the evening’s performance, though for the third straight game of the series Pittsburgh got the game’s opening goal, this one from Ben Lovejoy.
The Penguins, who had their four-game playoff win streak snapped, are trying to seize their first Stanley Cup since 2009. We’ve lost two games by a goal. The Sharks’ penalty kill is pretty bad and given the offensive stars on Pittsburgh I expected it to be.a little more lethal than it has been. “They’re playing at a good pace right now, and we can definitely do better”. “We’re still looking for the next step”.
“We know that if we play this way we’re not going to win games, so we need to be better”, San Jose center Logan Couture said.
Braun has just 13 regular season goals in his career and before Game 2, he had scored just once in 43 playoff games. The Penguins rookie goaltender didn’t see the shot, only glancing over his left shoulder when the puck was entering the goal. “Thornton is a pass-first guy (who) can dish the puck with the best guys in the league”. The Pens flew out yesterday, which will hopefully help with the initial change, but they still haven’t played a team out of the Eastern time zone during the playoffs before now. The Penguins blocked 12 attempts in the first frame and 38 overall, often curtailing San Jose’s engaged efforts. But in the second period when the Sharks made one of their strongest pushes of the series, Murray stood tall.
The start of the overtime period largely belonged to the Sharks, who pelted Murray with shots. “I thought we were better”.
Like Sullivan, who went 33-16-5 with a plus-41 goal differential after replacing Johnston, Bylsma guided the Penguins to a dominant record before eventually helping the club back to the Stanley Cup final. The Predators extended the series to seven games, before finally bowing to the Sharks. They got their chance when Nick Bonino was sent off for a double-minor for high-sticking Thornton.
Murray denied every chance until the very last one, as Ward prompted a deafening roar from the energetic SAP Center crowd.
The Sharks still face slim odds. The Penguins held a 14-6 shots advantage in the first period, giving them a cumulative 40-16 edge in the first 20 minutes of the first three games of this championship series.
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“It’s not going to look like maybe some of the series in the past where we’ve dominated for long stretches”, DeBoer said.
