Wednesday night, the San Jose Sharks were less than welcoming to old friends who were less than perfect guests now that they play for the Minnesota Wild. In a night that featured scuffles and scores between former teammates, their sixth straight win—the last five of which are at home—moved them into a virtual tie with the Vancouver Canucks for the fourth seed in the Western Conference with 12 games left in the 2013 NHL season.
Minnesota is also in a virtual tie with Vancouver, but the both teams hold the regulation/overtime tie-breaker over San Jose who is thus the fifth seed. Still, more than two games separates the fifth and ninth seeds, making the Stanley Cup playoffs very likely. As a team that plays so much better at HP Pavilion (13-1-4) than on the road (6-10-2), earning the fourth seed may be crucial to making it out of a tough first round.
Former Wild (and still wild—his suit in the dressing room would have made Don Cherry cringe) defenseman Brent Burns took the first step at doing damage to his former team in this match-up in the second minute. He took the puck deep and got it to Joe Thornton, who found Martin Havlat for the one-timer.
Soon after, Minnesota committed two penalties that overlapped for 53 seconds, but then won the initial draw allowing the penalty kill to clear the puck. Television cannot do justice to the move that happened next.
Dan Boyle took it from his own net past the red line, then decided to burst past the blue line one-on-three rather than shoot the puck in or stall in the neutral zone. He was able to beat the defense for a clean shot in the slot, faked the forehand to get goalie Niklas Backstrom down and put it behind him on the backhand. It is already being tagged as the goal of the year on NHL.com.
It was his third five-on-three goal of the 2013 season. When asked if the two-man advantage helped him smell blood in the water like a good Shark, he replied "Obviously you've got a lot of opportunity on five-on-threes to put the puck in the net. It's a team game, so the other times they were nice passes, but this was a little different."
He chided Burns while describing his best-ever goal: "It was actually against Minnesota years ago when I was with Tampa (Bay). Burnzie was on defense and I kind of undressed him."
This team is loose. Putting an unknown like Raffi Torres into an NHL team that looks like it has developed chemistry is a questionable move, yet very little was said about that trade. Coach Todd McLellan said he needed to take a deeper look into the very familiar forward before assessing his role, and he is said to be joining the team Thursday.
He also addressed something that can be a bad side effect of a loose team, saying his team needs to work on not having five to seven minutes a game where they tend to lose focus or tenacity. Both Wild goals were scored by forwards traded by the Sharks in the summer of 2011 on consecutive shifts mid-say through the second period. Charlie Coyle poked in a loose puck after Antti Niemi failed to control a Zach Parise shot and then Dany Heatley tied the game on a blast from the point through traffic.
Thornton took a puck from Burns 3:44 later and tried to pass through the slot. It bounced off Clayton Stoner's skate and into the net for Thornton's seventh goal and second in two games. A power play goal by T.J. Galiardi in the third period capped the scoring.
As the game ended, tempers boiled over. Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Heatley exchanged slashes that appear to have resulted in an arm injury of some kind for the Minnesota forward that is likely to keep him out for a while. Vlasic had this to say about it:
The last shift both teams were cross checking, slashing, slew foot. He took a swing at me and missed. I took a swing at him and got him. ...(Joe Pavelski) got slew-footed, I got cross-checked by (Heatley) in front. I gave him a cross-check back. Guys were battling in front. If you’re going to get a cross-check, I assume you can give one back. That’s what happened in the last shift. Unfortunately, I got him in the wrist or shoulder. I’m not sure where I got him. That was not my intent. My intent was just to defend myself.
That injury will not be a blow to the Wild's chance of making the Stanley Cup playoffs. But it might hurt their chances of winning the Northwest Division battle they have with the injury-riddled Canucks. That would push them down the Western Conference standings and give them a tougher first-round match-up.
The Sharks out-shot them for two periods (33 each for the game) and still out-blocked them in all three (22-10 total). They won more draws (36-28) and had at least as many takeaways in all three (9-4). The Wild had the edge with more hits (38-21) and fewer giveaways (13-5) in all three periods, but they also had more opportunities for both because they spent more time defending.
They played nearly flawlessly outside of 25 seconds of the second period and the final 8:05, when the Sharks gave up 11 shots on 18 attempts without hitting the net on their only try. Thus limiting the number of stars to three was difficult, so there are honorable mentions:
- Burns had two assists, got three of his four attempts on net, had three hits and a takeaway.
- Niemi only had to make a couple big saves, but they more than made up for the kind of rebound control mistake that will happen from time to time.
- Going a little off the radar here, Pavelski really helped his line put pressure on Minnesota. Even though he had no points, he got all six of his shot attempts on net, won 11 of 17 draws and made an impact on defense with four hits, four takeaways and three blocks.
- Brad Stuart had five blocks, three hits and two shot attempts. Boyle had the great individual play, Thornton and Havlat had a goal and an assist each and Galiardi had the goal because he had earned time on the second power play unit.
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