San Jose Sharks go up 3
Posted: 04/22/2014 10:34:21 PM PDT
Updated: 04/22/2014 10:46:12 PM PDT
LOS ANGELES -- Even after two lopsided victories, the Sharks kept saying it wouldn't be easy coming into the Staples Center and taking Game 3 from the Los Angeles Kings.
They were right.
It wasn't easy.
But a backhand goal by Patrick Marleau at 6:20 of overtime Tuesday night gave the Sharks a 4-3 victory over the Los Angeles Kings and a commanding 3-0 lead of their first-round, best-of-seven playoff series.
The game marked San Jose's fifth consecutive win in playoff overtime. Marleau got his 60th playoff goal and 100th career point.
This one was as tight as the others were lopsided with neither team taking more than a one-goal lead at any time. The Sharks got their regulation goals from Brent Burns and rookies Matt Nieto and Tomas Hertl while the Kings' offense came from Jarret Stoll, Marian Gaborik and Jeff Carter.
The Sharks got their regulation goals from Brent Burns and rookies Matt Nieto and Tomas Hertl while the Kings offense came from Jarret Stoll, Marian Gaborik and Jeff Carter.
The first two games of the series got the NHL's attention -- not because the Sharks won both, but because they outscored Los Angeles by a combined score of 13-5 against a Kings team that allowed the fewest goals in the NHL last season.
Still, the Sharks played down the 6-3 and 7-2 scores, saying they expected Kings goalie Jonathan Quick to return to form.
If the Sharks needed yet another reminder of the challenge of winning three straight to open a playoff series, they got it the previous night when all three Western Conference teams that were up 2-0 lost when they went on the road.
Not that defenseman Dan Boyle needed a reminder.
'It's pretty obvious,' he before the game. 'Until you win the fourth game, there's nothing to really take comfort in as much as you want to talk about the good things you do. Until you put a team away, it's never over.'
The Sharks didn't exactly dominate the Kings in the first period, but it did end with San Jose holding a 1-0 lead as the Sharks took advantage of their one power play and the Kings failed to score on two of theirs.
San Jose went on the power play at 3:05 when Dwight King tripped James Sheppard in the neutral zone, and the Sharks needed only 11 seconds to capitalize.
Joe Pavelski won the faceoff and a Joe Thornton centering pass caromed off a Kings skate to Burns high in the left faceoff circle. Burns misfired on his shot, but the puck fluttered over Quick's glove and into the net to give the Sharks a 1-0 lead at 3:16.
The Kings got that one back at 4:48 of the second period with their first power-play goal of the series. With Jason Demers in the penalty box for delay of game after firing the puck over the glass, Tyler Toffoli found Stoll open in the left faceoff circle and his one-timer beat Antti Niemi.
A little more than three minutes later, Gaborik led a three-on-two rush into the Sharks zone, kept the puck for himself, cut across the goal mouth and fired a backhand that gave Los Angeles a 2-1 lead at 7:59.
But the Sharks had answered that 78 seconds later when Marleau took the puck away from Slava Voynov and got it to Demers at the right point. Nieto tipped his shot and benefited from the fact Kings defenseman Robyn Regher ran into his own goalie as Logan Couture was circling from behind the net.
Nieto's goal was the first of the postseason for the Sharks rookie who grew up down I-110 from the Staples Center in Long Beach.
The teams traded power plays in the first half of the third period with Carter tipping a shot by Anze Kopitar at 51 seconds while James Sheppard was still in the penalty box for tripping Justin Williams late in the second period.
Then with Kings defenseman Alec Martinez off for hooking Nieto, San Jose tied it at 3-3 when Hertl took multiple whacks at the rebound of a shot by Marc-Edouard Vlasic and the puck finally slid past Quick.
A penalty to Stoll for interfering with Logan Couture at 18:02 put the Sharks on one more power play in regulation and Quick had to come up with big saves on Demers and Couture with about 12 seconds left to force the extra period.
Held to 16 shots over the first two periods, the Sharks fired 23 at Quick in the third and ended up outshooting the Kings 39-26 through the first 60 minutes.
For more on the Sharks, see David Pollak's Working the Corners blog at http://ift.tt/KrtLFP. Follow him on Twitter at http://ift.tt/1iarwFT.
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