Sharks dig deep to pull out ‘gutsy’ road win over Kings
LOS ANGELES – When the San Jose Sharks were down 2-0 and 3-1 to the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday night at Staples Center, they could have played out the clock.
It was the last game of a five-game roadtrip and the Sharks were already guaranteed points in three of the contests. They had five straight home games coming up and players had plans to scatter after the game and get away to relax for a few days for the NHL’s Christmas break.
Instead of folding the Sharks found a way to keep pushing against their rival and came from behind in a 5-3 win.
The Sharks finished their road trip at 3-1-1 and head into the break in second place in the Pacific Division with 36 points at 17-5-2.
“We had one game and then we had four days off or however much it is. We don’t want to leave here feeling like we let each other down,” captain Joe Pavelski said. “We were going to keep battling and keep playing and we were rewarded tonight.”
Pavelski scored two power play goals in the third period. One was a tip-in off a Brent Burns shot. The other came off a feed from linemate Joe Thornton from behind the Los Angeles net.
Pavelski scored two goals and added an assist and Thornton had one score and two assists.
“It was a gutsy effort,” Sharks forward Matt Nieto said. “It wasn’t the greatest first period but everyone pulled together after that. We came out, established our game in the second and really played hard until the end of the game and it paid off for us.”
Pavelski has been the catalyst for the Sharks of late. On the roadtrip, he finished with 10 points, and in the team’s prior game – a loss at Chicago – he had 11 registered hits.
“There’s a reason he’s the captain,” Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said. “He was just willing us to win. He was taking on guys much bigger than him and going to the dirty areas of the ice. When your best player is that honest and working that hard and cares that much, everyone else tends to follow and I think that’s the case.”
The Sharks came into the 2015-16 season as a mystery team. Were they too old to make a run with Thornton and Patrick Marleau both 36 years old? Did they make the right moves in the offseason, adding veterans Joel Ward and Paul Martin, along with unproven former Kings backup goaltender Martin Jones? Were they over their captaincy issues from a year ago when Thornton was stripped of his ‘C’ last season and had a public spat with general manager Doug Wilson?
Marleau (25 points in 34 games) and Thornton (23 points) have both been effective. Ward (10 goals in 32 games) has been better-than-expected. Martin has been a steadying blueline presence when healthy and Jones (2.39 goal-against average and .916 save percentage) has shown he can be a solid starter in the NHL.
“We’ve been playing hockey great as of late, especially on the road,” Nieto said. “When everyone’s pulling together, buying in and doing their job, the team’s going to be successful. We’re buying into that and we’re getting points and we’re heading to Christmas with a nice win.”
But there are still questions. They’ve been without center Logan Couture for all but five games this year. Will his eventual return from his latest issue – surgery for a “small arterial bleed” in his thigh area – enable the Sharks to go on more of a run?
Can they improve at home, where they’ve gone 4-9-0 this season?
DeBoer thinks his team is on the right track – and the win over the Kings proved it to some degree.
“I’ve seen glimpses of some really special things here through the first half,” DeBoer said. “We have the capability of having a very good second half.”
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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper
