On Wednesday night, the San Jose Sharks extended their now league-leading active winning streak over the Chicago Blackhawks to 13 games.
They did it in a way very contrary to how they won the two teams' first match-up, winning 3-2 in overtime rather than 6-5 in regulation. Instead of both teams taking five or more penalties, both were assessed only two.
The first line carried the weight, as they have for the past six games, with all three forwards extending their scoring streaks to six games. Devin Setoguchi had an assist, and Patrick Marleau had the game-tying goal in the third period on a wrap-around that was the first score against Cristobal Huet.
Marleau missed two golden scoring opportunities, including one in which a prone and injured Nikolai Khabibulin was covering only the low portion of the far side of the net. Marleau shot the puck right into his pad, bringing the stoppage of play on Khabibulin's 24th save, which allowed Chicago to replace him with Huet.
This was one of the reasons it was inexplicable that Marleau got first star of the game, when Thornton had the game-winner 45 seconds into overtime and the primary assist on Marleau's goal.
Prior to the score, Thornton had to fight the puck off the stick of a Chicago defender and slide the pass to Ryan Clowe, who returned it for the give-and-go one-timer and his second assist of the game. His first came on a five-on-three power play late in the first period, when he took a feed from Dan Boyle and got it to Rob Blake for the one-timer.
Sharks radio play-by-play announcer Dan Rusanowsky got the second star right—Chicago forward Jonathan Toews scored both Chicago goals, getting the tying score just past the midpoint, and the go-ahead goal as a five-on-three penalty was two seconds from expiring early in the third period.
That power play started with a match penalty for boarding to Mike Grier, who finished a check against the boards on Aaron Johnson even though Johnson's back was to him. Johnson did not return to the game, but the league determined that Grier's punishment in the game was sufficient.
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about 1 month ago
the shot that marleau missed on the open net looked bad for those like myself who were at the game, but after seeing the replays the pass went through a defenders skates and was bouncing by the time it got to marleau, thornton also passed it 100 mph, so all patty could do was try to get a stick on it. Unfortunately it went wide/right back to the out of position khabibulin.
i agree though that thornton shoulda been the #1 star, but i dont really care too much about three star selections
from about 1 month ago
Yeah, I can sit here and say he's a star and has to make that play, but it's not as easy as it looks--heck, I might not have made that one if it WASN'T bouncing. We all expect them to always make that save or get that open net. Like Modano's last night--that was a tough angle and to even get the open net, he has to hit it perfectly...you just come to expect them to make those.
However, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect him to make one of the two (I think the other he was moving and it was on the other side of the net, but I don't remember for sure) open net chances he had, and we have to be able to expect Osgood to make that save from centre ice he missed yesterday, too.
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