A strong start and a weak middle gave the San Jose Sharks no
choice but to rally for a 3-3 tie with the Chicago Balckhawks in
front of 14,441 NHL buffs Thursday at HP Pavilion.
SAN JOSE – A strong start and a weak middle gave the San Jose Sharks no choice but to rally for a 3-3 tie with the Chicago Balckhawks in front of 14,441 NHL buffs Thursday at HP Pavilion.
Treading water in 14th place in the 15-team Western Conference with four points (1-4-2-0), San Jose needed Tom Preisssing’s first NHL goal 8:03 into the third period to fashion the 3-3 stand-off. The Sharks fired a team season-high 37 shots at Chicago goalie Jocelyn Thibault, while San Jose’s Evgeni Nabokov is 0-4-2 after a 33-save night.
“I’m disappointed, obviously,” San Jose coach Ron Wilson said after the Sharks allowed a 2-0 first-period lead to evaporate in a three-goal outburst by Chicago in the middle period. “I was happy that we came back, but the lack of intensity in the second period was disturbing.
“We were flying in the first period. In the second, we stopped skating. We took the foot off the gas and were riding the brake. We’ve got to stop being afraid to lose here and play to win. You have to keep pushing.”
Patrick Marleau and Nils Ekman each scored his second goal of the season as the Sharks left the ice for the first intermission up 2-0.
Marleau, though, had little to do with the scoring of the first goal at the 4:15 mark. Marleau lost a face-off in the right circle of the Chicago zone to begin a power play. Hawk center Scott Nichol pulled the puck back to teammate Alexander Karpovtsev, whose strong whack at the puck, intended to wrap around the backboards behind the net, instead settled inside the right post for the San Jose tally.
“We didn’t score, so they had to score,” said San Jose’s Marco Sturm about the Sharks’ second goal in the past 10 periods. “It’s a lucky break.”
Sturm gave San Jose a 2-0 lead 50 seconds later when he led a 2-on-1 break toward Thibault and dropped a cross-ice pass to Ekman for the one-timer into the open net behind the goalie.
“We had an embarrassng second period,” said Sturm of the Hawk-dominated 20 minutes. “You could tell from the start of the second – we made sloppy plays, didn’t finish checks.”
“They (the Hawks) weren’t going to give up,” said Wilson. “They’re a young team. We took some bad penalties. We can’t keep beating ourselves.”
The Hawks took advantage of a slow Sharks line change during a power play to slice the deficit in two. Brett McLean, in his sixth NHL game, sped around the San Jose defense to beat Nabokov from 10 feet out at the 3:44 mark.
The Hawks needed 46 seconds to score two goals late in the period. Mark Bell netted an unassisted goal at the 16:19 mark while the teams skated 4-on-4.
Chicago took a 3-2 lead on a short-handed goal from McLean. Steve Sullivan started a 2-on-1 break from the redline against lone defenseman Scott Hannan. Sullivan’s well-timed feed to McLean left Nabokov little time to recover to the left post, allowing the slapshot to reach the net at 17:05.
Brad Stuart ignited a Shark power play in the third period with a hard shot from the left point. The long rebound found Preisssing unmarked in the high slot, and the rookie delivered the tying goal.
“I saw Stuey wind up for a shot and I was there waiting for the long rebound to happen. Fortunately, it did. It’s something you dream about.”
“We could have hung our heads (down 3-2), but we managed to kill off a huge 5-on-3,” said Wilson.
The Sharks, two points from a share of eighth place in the conference, complete a five-game homestand with a game against Phoenix Saturday.
