Jordan Eberle was the first star in tonight's 3-2 SO win over the San Jose Sharks. (photo: Bridget Samuels/flickr)
Edmonton Oilers at San Jose Sharks – March 6, 2012
This was the third of four matchups between these two teams, each having taken a win; most recently Edmonton’s 2-1 shootout win on January 23. Coming into tonight’s game, Edmonton was 4-5-1 in their last ten, and the Sharks had an unimpressive 2-7-1 for theirs.
- Theo Peckham missed 15 games with a facial injury – played tonight
- OKC call-up Linus Omark played tonight – did not play Tuesday vs. Anaheim
- Jordan Eberle lead the Oilers with 29 goals going into tonight’s game
- Edmonton was 25-33-6 over the course of this season before tonight
- This was the second – and last – of a two-game California road trip for the Oilers.
Three Stars: 1: Jordan Eberle, 2: Logan Couture, 3: Jeff Petry
Opening Frame:
Ten seconds.
That’s all it took for Jordan Eberle to open the scoring, netting his 30th goal of the season and putting the visitors up 1-0 off a lucky bounce he managed to bat out of the air and past Antti Niemi. (I had to remind myself that, no, I was not watching an MLB game. It was quite the goal, though.) This made Eberle the first 30-goal scorer for the Oilers since Dustin Penner reached the milestone in the 09-10 season.
Three minutes later, San Jose’s Jim Vandermeer tied the game at one with a slapper that was able to make it past Devan Dubnyk’s catcher. At the eight-minute mark, the shot clock was even, but was the fourteen-minute mark rolled around, the Sharks were up 11-4 in that department. Edmonton’s next best scoring chance came when Ales Hemsky took the puck to the net but was denied in front of the net.
In the final minute of the first period, Sam Gagner collected a pass from Taylor Hall and shot towards the empty side of the net; his shot went wide as he couldn’t properly connect with the puck.
After 20 minutes, Edmonton had 6 shots and San Jose had double.
In The Middle:
The middle frame got off to an uneventful start, the two teams combining for three shots in five minutes. Then, the halfway mark came and went without a change in the score, but shots at that point were 4-2 in favour of the Sharks. Also at this point: San Jose was kicked out of the playoffs; they trailed a point behind LA and Colorado, sitting 10th in the West.
Then, Edmonton managed to get more of the play into the San Jose zone, but there were still no changes to the scoreboard.
At 15:19, Ryane Clowe’s 12th goal of the season came from Logan Couture and put the home side up by one. Less than a minute later, Jeff Petry’s goal deflected off of Ryan Smyth and made its way past Antti Niemi to tie the game at two.
As time expired, shots were 11-5 in favour of Edmonton.
The Final Twenty… Maybe:
It took just over six minutes for the first penalty of the game to be called – San Jose’s Justin Braun went off for delaying the game – and Edmonton’s 1st-ranked power play went to work against San Jose’s 28th-place penalty kill.
Seconds in, Patrick Marleau and Joe Pavelski broke out on a rush towards Devan Dubnyk for a shorthanded opportunity, but the Oilers goaltender denied the scoring chance. As the play moved back to the San Jose end, the Oilers managed two great scoring opportunities after a number of rebounds, but the momentum was cut short as Edmonton captain Shawn Horcoff was given two for tripping in the middle of the scramble.
4-on-4 play followed, but that ran out, giving the Sharks fifty-six seconds of power play time. Seconds after the 4-on-4 expired, Ryan Jones was sent to the box as well, giving the Sharks a two-man advantage for 41 seconds. Shawn Horcoff made it out of the box and was able to clear the puck with one minute left in the one man advantage for San Jose. The Oilers were able to kill the penalty to Jones, and at the 11-minute mark, shots were 24-23 in favour of the Sharks.
Dubi’s in the net, ma – stoppin’ all the shots, stoppin’ all the shots, stoppin’ all the shots…
With just under four minutes left, Devan Dubnyk robbed Patrick Marleau’s shot from Joe Thornton for what was his best save of the night.
The rest of regulation time winded down, sending the game to overtime.
Period #4:
The Oilers managed to dominate most of the extra five minutes – especially the later half – and with one minute left in overtime, the play was sent into the Oilers zone and straight back as both teams needed to change. With oly seconds left, Joe Pavelski got the Sharks’ best change in OT but was denied by Devan Dubnyk on the original shot before the rebound was sent out of danger in front of the net.
And this game was headed to a shootout.
One On One… On One… On One…:
Joe Pavelski was stopped by Dubnyk before Jordan Eberle’s backhand attempt was denied by Niemi.
Michal Handzus’ shot was an easy save for Dubnyk, but Sam Gagner’s shot went past Niemi for his 12th career shootout goal.
Devan Dubnyk stopped Brent Burns’ shot, securing the 3-2 Oilers win.
