Selanne scores tow goals in 5-2 home win over Sutter’s
Flames.
SAN JOSE – The San Jose Sharks powered past the Calgary Flames 5-2 Monday night at HP Pavilion and will take a two-game winning streak into a three-game roadtrip beginning Thursday in Vancouver.
Teemu Selanne scored two goals and Owen Nolan and Vincent Damphousse netted power-play goals to spoil the return to the Shark Tank of former Sharks coach Darryl Sutter, now the Calgary coach.
The Sharks, with 57 points in 13th place in the Western Conference, have 20 games to play. Four teams are one, two, three and four points respectively ahead of the Sharks, while the eighth-seed Edmonton Oilers are 10 points ahead of the Sharks.
“Two in a row is a good start,” said Selanne. “It’s going to be a good challenge for us. At the same time, in this league, you never know.”
“It’s not officially over,” added Marco Sturm, who assisted of both power play goals. “We still have a chance.”
“We’ve narrowed the gap to a paltry 10 points and we’ll just keep working on it,” said coach Ron Wilson. “We have a little bit of momentum. It’s going to be hard to keep it playing in Vancouver. They’re the hottest team in the NHL.”
The Sharks got off to a strong start as Matt Bradley scored on the fourth shift of the game.
The Bradley line had cycled the puck in the Flames end for 40 seconds before Bradley’s linemates Mark Smith and Todd Harvey skated to the boards for a chance. Bradley, spotting a lane toward to the net as teammate Mike Rathje controlled the puck at the redline, stayed at the blueline and waited for a pass.
“I was going to dump the puck, but I had some room,” Bradley said. The winger carried the puck to the outside edge of the circle before booming a shot under goalie Roman Turek’s glove at the 4:09 mark.
“It was kind of a freaky goal. But give them credit, we talked about shooting from anywhere and trying to catch Turek off-guard,” Wilson said of the gameplan.
Nolan accounted for the lone goal of the second period, a slapshot from the left dot at the 11:03 mark. San Jose kept the puck in the Calgary zone for 59 seconds before Nolan circled with the puck near the left boards to make some room, they rifled a shot inside the left goalpost as Sturm set up a screen in from of Turek.
“It was a nice shot by Owen, but it was a great play by Marco Sturm to create a screen in front of the goalie. It’s nice when your power play can contribute a big goal like that,” Wilson said.
The third period produced five goals. Goalie Evgeni Nabokov flirted with a second consecutive shut-out, but had to settle for a 32-save performance to earn his 18th win of the season.
The line combination of Niko Dimitrakos and Selanne accounted for the two even-strength goals that Turek could not stop in the final 20 minutes.
Playing in his fifth NHL game, Dimitrakos did most of the work on the play making it a 3-0 Sharks lead 6:16 into the period. The left wing started the scoring play by chipping the puck off the stick of Calgary forward Jarome Iginla at the San Jose blueline.
“I went down the wing,” said Dimitrakos. “Teemu went deep and they had to worry about him a little bit. I faked the shot, went to the middle and held it. I had an empty net and probably should have shot the puck upstairs.” Turek dove to repel Dimitrakos’ low shot, but Selanne recovered the rebound for the point-blank goal.
Damphousse bagged his 18th goal of the season at 14:49 on a power play. Ex-Shark Dave Lowry made it 4-1 when he turned a rebound of a Denis Gauthier shot from the point into a goal.
Dimitrakos stopped a Flames shot with his skate near the Sharks blueline as the visitors were changing lines with three minutes to play. He found Selanne behind the defense and skidded the puck toward the Flames zone.
“I tried to feather it as soft as I could so it wouldn’t be a two-line pass,’ said the rookie. Selanne corraled the puck and completed the breakaway by poking the puck between Turek’s legs at 17:19.
Calgary added a second goal when Scott Nichol scored with 1:58 left.
“We got a little lazy at the end,” said Sharks defenseman Scott Hannan. “We thought it was in the bag.”
“We played with discipline,” added Wilson. “They had only one power play, so we never gave them a chance to get back into the game. All in all I was really pleased with their play.”
