Sharks Ambush New York

Sharks Ambush New York’s DiPietro

“It was a good all-around team effort.”—Matt Carle

By Barbara Mason
BASD/Raiderdrive.com
Story posted by Al Reyes-BASD

The San Jose Sharks took to the ice Saturday night at HP Pavilion two days after their opening win over the St. Louis Blues looking for win number two. After a, sloppy at times, performance in their opener they hope to get back to basics against the New York Islanders. While the win against the Blues was two points for the team, they admittedly have some issues to address.

New York came into this game after a disappointing start dropping their first game to Phoenix 6-3. It was an ugly loss with the highly paid goalie Rick DiPietro allowing 6 goals in the first two periods before being pulled from action. He definitely came into this game hoping to turn things around on his end.

It just didn’t happen for DiPietro. Once again, he was unable to keep the puck out of the net twice in the first period. This turned out to be all the Sharks needed to win this game 2-0, turning in a strong defensive effort in the 2^nd and 3^rd periods. At 13:57 #18 Matt Carle scored with assists by #12 Patrick Marleau and #26 Steve Bernier. Minutes later, at 17:33 #10 Christian Ehrhoff assisted by #12 Patrick Marleau and #26 Steve Bernier scored what would turn out to be the final goal.

While the Islanders came out strong in the first period, the Sharks were able to adjust mid-way in that period to control play for the rest of the game. “They started out pretty good,” said goalie Evgeni Nabokov. “They were shooting the puck from everywhere but those kind of momentums will happen in the game. I thought we did a pretty good job by clearing the puck after rebounds.”

Saturday’s game saw Nabokov successfully take over goal-tending duties. San Jose has the luxury of having two outstanding goalies, being able to alternate them and giving them the ability to remain fresh. While Nabokov was happy to get his first win of the season under his belt, he also knows that there is a very long season ahead of them. “It always feels good to get the win in the beginning of the season, but it’s nothing more than that. It’s an 82 game season and there’s a lot of work ahead,” said Nabokov.

The second and third periods revealed a much stronger defensive effort than in their opener. “The first game of the year, I think our guys were a little nervous out there and we gave a little too much in our own zone,” said Kyle McLaren. “Tonight we buckled down and there was great goal tending tonight. When your goaltender is hot like that, it makes it a lot easier on us. In the second and third (periods) we clamped down.”

Matt Carle, who scored the first goal of the evening to get things going, also gave a lot of praise to the excellent job by Nabokov. “When you get the power play working early it kind of builds on the rest of the game,” said Carle in reference to the two power play goals scored by the team. “To get that quick goal, it gave us some confidence to get another one. It was a good all-around team effort,” he said.

San Jose now takes it out on the road with Calgary being their first stop followed by back-to-back games against Edmonton and Vancouver. They will not return to HP Pavilion until October 17 against the Dallas Stars.