J.R. and Teammates Burn Calgary To Win Series

“He played probably his best game this season.”--- Coach Ron Wilson on Jeremy Roenick

By Barbara Mason 4/23/08
 Bay Area Sports/Raiderdrive.com

Playing what may have been one their best games this year could not have come at a better time for the San Jose Sharks as they took on the Calgary Flames in the win or go home game 7 last night at HP Pavilion. 

After sitting out game 6 Jeremy Roenick put on an incredible performance scoring two goals and two assist coming in as the backbone among several in this game seven victory by the score of 5-3, in front of 17,496 thousand delirious fans and 111,000 more at home watching the game. It was an unforgettable evening for everyone delighting in a little payback for 2004 finding a way of beating their former coach Sutter and their former captain Owen Nolan.  “We just kept coming.  Everybody saw the way the San Jose Sharks can play tonight,” said Jeremy Roenick who provided the defining moments of this game.  “We put on an onslaught.  We just kept coming and coming and put shots in the goal and sometimes they go in. That’s what they say, just put it on net and it was a great second period for us,” he said.  “I think I’ve got the legs of an eighteen-year-old right now.”   

As it turned out the decision of Coach Ron Wilson to hold Roenick out of game 6 was right on the money.  He realized that his man was running on empty.  The energy and anger if you will that Roenick was feeling only spurred him on to the solid performance in game 7.

Roenick was playing in his sixth career game 7 having 6 goals in game sevens.  It was an incredible performance for the oldest man on the ice for the Sharks at 37 years of age.  He has been in the league for twenty years and game sevens do not come around very often.  He was quoted as saying that this is where you etch your legacy if you are a player in this game and no doubt there is one more place he would like to etch his name and that is the Stanley Cup.

It was an all-around team effort with Devin Setoguchi, Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski each turning in goals.  For Setoguchi, it was his first ever playoff goal scored in the second period.  He now has a goal and an assist in 4 post season games.  Thornton had his second goal of the post season and now has recorded 7 points.  It was the third goal for Pavelski in the playoffs and he too has 7 points to his credit.  He has recorded points in 6 of the seven games played.

Round two will be a re-match of two division rivals, as the Sharks will take on the Dallas Stars.  They had a great regular season series with the Stars and they had quite an eventful final game in the last game of the year. 

A lot of credit has to go to the Calgary Flames who turned out to be very tough opponents.  It could have gone either way but the Sharks prevailed in a contest of grit.

The way this series began is in some ways reminiscent of the regular season as the Teal and Black struggled at times.  San Jose finished off this series in much the same way as they finished off the season, like a house on fire, virtually unbeatable.  They need to take that style of play into the next round against the Dallas Stars who will prove to also be very worthy adversaries.

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