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San Jose Weathers the Ups and Downs of the Regular Season “It was a great effort. The guys were doing all the little detail things.”--Coach Ron Wilson
It was the best of times and earlier in the season; it was the worst of times. Thankfully the worst of times came during what one could have called an opportune time for the San Jose Sharks. There was plenty of time to recover from a lengthy rough patch, and recover they did. The Sharks now celebrate the best of times as they take their division title into the playoffs with home ice advantage and a whole lot more. They are skating with confidence and everyone; absolutely everyone on this team is contributing something every coach likes to see come playoff time. With the 2008 season rapidly coming to an end, the San Jose Sharks could not have peaked at a better time and in fact, this team may have a few more tricks up their jerseys that will be unveiled in the post-season. Sunday afternoon, the Sharks took on the Phoenix Coyotes in a game that in the big scheme meant little to San Jose but Phoenix was still alive in the playoff race prior to this game. San Jose took control of the game 14 seconds into the first period when #19 Joe Thornton scored his 27th goal of the season assisted by # Milan Michalek (29th assist) and #29 Ryane Clowe (4th assist) for the early lead. At 6:33 Phoenix’s #19 Shane Doan tied up the game with his 28th goal this year. San Jose was able to take the lead into the locker room 2-1 as the first period came to an end when Joe Thornton scored his second goal of the game at 17:31. This brought his total for the regular season to 28. Again he was assisted by #9 Michalek (30th assist). Both teams were even with shots on goal numbering 8. The second period came to an end with the score remaining 2-1 although the Sharks began to put some real pressure on the Coyotes with 25 to 13 shots on goal. Both goalies, San Jose’s Evgeni Nabokov and the Coyotes Ilya Bryzgalov had excellent showings keeping the period scoreless. The Sharks defense continued to keep Phoenix off balance, as the Coyotes sputtered and stumbled through the game. At 7:10 in the third and final period, the dry spell came to an end for the Sharks with a textbook perfect goal from #37 Curtis Brown (4th goal of the season) assisted by #51 Brian Campbell (52nd assist) and #27 Jeremy Roenick (17th assist). Finishing with 33 shots on goal for San Jose, the Sharks chalked up one more victory, the final 3-1 with three games left on the season. “It was a great effort. The guys were doing all the little detail things. I thought we totally controlled the game,” said Coach Ron Wilson after the game. “They were still alive in the playoff race so they had something to play for and we didn’t let them, especially when you score in the first shift,” he said in reference to the first goal of the game. “We let them know early that we wanted to win the game.” Wilson was trying a number of things in this game in an effort to establish what some of his guys will be able to do come playoff time. “There are lots of ingredients that we are going to need in the playoffs, but grit is a big thing. Now we’ve just got to get some of the other guys healthy.” San Jose will have one more home game before the season ends against the Los Angeles Kings Tuesday night. The puck drops at 7:30 They will finish on the road against the Kings Thursday night followed by the final regular season game next Sunday against the Dallas Stars. Contact: Bay Area Sports Drive (BASD)
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3/30/08 By Barbara Mason