SAN JOSE
– Calgary scored a third-period goal and escaped with a 2-1 win
over the San Jose Sharks, leaving the hosts with a 1-1-1 mark for
the week.
The Sharks finish the five-game homestand with games Wednesday
opposite Los Angeles and Friday against Dallas.
SAN JOSE – Calgary scored a third-period goal and escaped with a 2-1 win over the San Jose Sharks, leaving the hosts with a 1-1-1 mark for the week.
The Sharks finish the five-game homestand with games Wednesday opposite Los Angeles and Friday against Dallas.
After a one-game blip, HP Pavilion was at capacity against the Flames.
Calgary, in a tight battle for leadership of the Northwest Division with Colorado, finished in a 36-36 deadlock in shots on net with San Jose. The difference in the outcome was one more save by Miikka Kiprusoff for the visitors.
The teams played a scoreless first, then each pocketed one goal in the second period. Daymond Langkow one-timed the winner home at 3:36 of the third period.
The Flames snapped the 1-1 tie when forward Rene Bourque worked behind the Sharks net and was able to control the puck. Langkow had slipped into the high slot, then received Bourque’s pass and quickly lined the puck into the top right corner of the net.
The Sharks created several good scoring chances the rest of the game. Scott Nichol’s shot from the inside edge of the right circle bounded off the crossbar with 15 minutes left. Joe Thornton’s bid for the equalizer minutes later was rebuffed by a right pad save by Kiprusoff to end an extended Sharks attack.
San Jose remains atop the NHL standings with 43 points, although five teams, including Calgary with 39, are within four points of the lead.
“You have to build in these types of games in your season where the effort is there and it just doesn’t go your way against a very good team,” said Sharks coach Todd McLellan.
“Both teams battled hard, the forechecking was hard, goaltending was good.”
The outcome marked the first time this season the Sharks lost a game in regulation in which it had a lead at any point in the contest. San Jose is 18-1-4 during that stretch.
San Jose’s Ryane Clowe extended his personal-best point streak to nine games with a goal 4:40 into the second period.
Pulling the puck away from Flame defenseman Jay Bouwmeester’s control along the sideboards in the Calgary zone, Clowe snapped a shot from a tough angle that bounced off defenseman Adam Pardy. Dan Boyle charged toward the loose puck and drilled a slapshot that Kiprusoff tried the stop. The puck dropped off his right glove and to the ice, where an advancing Clowe backhanded the puck in the net.
Calgary responded with an equalizer at 10:28 of the second period.
Captain Jerome Iginla found an unmarked Olli Jokinen at the top of the left circle with a cross-ice pass as the Flames entered the zone. As Jokinen moved into the left circle, Scott Nichol moved toward the Flame and extended his stick to attempt to stop the potential shot. Instead, Jokinen’s slapshot appeared the skim over the stick, then fly over goalie Evgeni Nabokov’s shoulder and into the net.
NOTES: Thornton, leading the league with 40 points, had a 10-game point streak snapped…Randy Hahn, San Jose’s television play-by-play man, broadcast his 1,000th NHL game.
