San Jose Sharks coach Todd McLellan didn't hold back Tuesday night after his team's lackluster 6-3 road loss against the Anaheim Ducks. McLellan let the Sharks have it, harshly criticizing their effort and performance. He continued sending that message Thursday morning, prior to the game against the Edmonton Oilers at SAP Center. Message delivered and received. The Sharks rebounded from one of their worst losses of the season in a big way, getting goals from five players in a 5-1 victory against the Oilers. Brent Burns, Patrick Marleau, Bracken Kearns, Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski scored for San Jose, and goaltender Antti Niemi made 23 saves.
"We were just ready to go as soon as the
puck dropped, and I thought for a full 60 [minutes] we kept the
pressure on and dictated the pace of the game tonight," said
Sharks captain Joe
Thornton, who had two assists and extended his point streak to
six games. We're a team that when you lose one, you like to get
back and get the next one and I think we proved that tonight. We have
a lot of good character players in this room. Go out and work hard
and that's what we did tonight. There's no secret. Just get back to
work. We didn't work as hard as we feel we should have in Anaheim and
we got back to it tonight."
Burns and Marleau scored goals 49 seconds apart in
the first period, giving the Sharks a 2-0 lead. Kearns and Couture
connected 1:27 apart in the second period to make it 4-0. Edmonton's
Nail Yakupov
scored at 15:39 to make it 4-1, but Pavelski scored at 5:44 of the
third to put the game away. The Sharks improved to 15-1-3 at SAP
Center and won their fifth straight home game. With 58 points, the
Sharks pulled within five of first place Anaheim in the Pacific
Division. The Sharks won a game by more than two goals for the first
time since Nov. 29 when they beat the St. Louis Blues 6-3. McLellan
said his message got through.
"The role players played some pretty good
roles tonight. You saw shots that were blocked. There was some
physicality, they won battles, they checked well. That was a good
sign. The go-to offensive guys were productive. It was a team effort.
I thought we were good until it was 4-0 and then we got sloppy. We've
got to get that out of our game. We talked about it again. The
response in the third was good."
The Oilers , who visit the Ducks on Friday night,
lost their third straight game and saw their four-game point streak
snapped. Goaltender Devan
Dubnyk, starting for the first time since his 27-save shutout of
the Calgary Flames on Dec. 27, allowed five goals on 36 shots.
"They proved why their record is the way
it is and we showed why we have the record we do," Oilers
defenseman Andrew
Ference said. "If you want any kind of success against
good teams like that, you can't make it harder on yourselves. You
have to limit the mistakes. We didn't come in here and give ourselves
a chance. It's always critical to take away momentum after they
score. To have them score on back-to-back shifts is disappointing."
Burns scored his 13th of the season at 14:37,
taking a pass from Pavelski in the lower right circle and beating
Dubnyk to the stick side. Marleau made it 2-0 at 15:26 of the first
with an unassisted goal. He stole the puck from Yakupov along the
boards in Edmonton's defensive zone, skated toward the slot and
snapped a shot through traffic and past Dubnyk for his team-high 18th
goal of the season. Marleau's goal was also the 422nd of his career,
tying him with former Shark Owen Nolan for 73rd place on the NHL's
all-time list. After being a healthy scratch Tuesday night against
the Phoenix Coyotes, Yakupov returned to the lineup and skated at
left wing on the second line. Oilers coach Dallas Eakins said he
wanted Yakupov to play a "simple game" and play sound
defensively, but his turnover helped put the Oilers in a two-goal
hole.
"We turned it over again and again and
again," Yakupov said. "We made too many mistakes. My
teammates encourage me to keep going."
The Sharks outshot Edmonton 17-7 in the first
period, with Burns taking five shots. Kearns increased San Jose's
lead to 3-0 at 7:18 of the middle period with his third NHL goal;
he's scored in each of San Jose's past three games. Kearns, 32, took
a pass from Andrew
Desjardins in the high slot and ripped a one-timer over Dubnyk's
glove.
"Another lucky one and I'll take it and
try to keep it going," Kearns said. "I thought we
played well tonight and had some sustained pressure. They talked
about a quick release against this goalie and that's what I tried to
do there and on a few other shots. That one found the back of the
net."
Couture made it 4-0 at 8:45 with his 13th goal of
the season and 200th career point. Edmonton turned over the puck in
San Jose's end, and John
McCarthy hit a wide-open Couture in stride with a long pass near
the blue line. Couture wristed a shot into the upper right corner,
extending his goal streak to three games after a 10-game drought.
"I've always said, my whole career, as a
goal scorer you're streaky," Couture said. "You're
hot and you're cold. You go through stretches you don't score, and
you go through stretches where everything starts going in. We saw a
guy like (Pavelski) go through it earlier this year. Hopefully now
I've had my cold streak for the year and can move past it and keep
contributing and helping the team win. I want to score goals and I
want to help the team."
Yakupov scored his seventh goal of the season at
15:39. He reached high to grab a loose puck, set it down in the left
circle, wristed a shot past Niemi and celebrated with a fist pump.
One day after being named to the U.S. Olympic team for the second
time, Pavelski scored his 17th goal of the season, ripping a long
slap shot inside the right post. After Pavelski scored, fans at SAP
Center chanted, "USA! USA! USA!"
"It's cool," Pavelski said.
"Obviously it's fun. It's an exciting time with the Olympics
coming up. It's more than any team, any sport. It's more about a
country thing. Regardless of where you are, it's a pretty special
time during the Olympics."
During a long stretch in the second period, Eakins
kept his top line of Taylor
Hall, Ryan
Nugent-Hopkins and David
Perron on the bench.
"We're not a deep enough team to have that
line have an off-night," Eakins said. "They weren't
very good and so it was time for them to sit and watch. They took it
well and did not hang their heads. I talked to them between periods
and explained how important they were to our team. We need them every
night to be in the game."
Sharks forward Mike
Brown, a former Oiler, got hit by San Jose shots in his foot and
his back during a sequence late in the game and struggled to get off
the ice.
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