The Sank Jose Sharks painfully slow season start seem to be picking up speed. Coming into Wednesday’s matchup against the Predators the Sharks were coming off back to back wins for the first time this season. Prior to those wins, San Jose seemed content at just be a .500 hockey club. An attitude that had many fans worried that San ose might not be making a run for the Cup this season.
On the night that saw the Astros defeat the Dodgers, and end the MLB season, the Sharks and Predators showcased the beautiful brutality of NHL Hockey.
Martin Jones is stellar in the pipes
Getting back on track to a winning season has to start somewhere. For the Sharks, that somewhere is goalie Martin Jones. In his last four starts, Jones has only allowed a total of five goals, and has a save percentage of .955. Wednesday against Nashville would be no different.
Even though the 4-4-2 Nashville Predators were very aggressive from the drop of the puck, Jones was more than up to the challenge. The Sharks net-minder saved 19 or 20 shots, including a shut-down of Nashville’s four powerplay opportunities.
Nashville’s lone goal came from Roman Josi at 10:04 of the second period. Josi looked like Neo from “The Matrix” as he dodged through four Sharks and snuck the puck past the right shoulder of Martin Jones.
The move was spectacular from the Predator’s captain, who scored his third goal of the season.
The Sharks establish dominance
Any team that comes into the Sharktank will have a tough go, but the Predators were shown no love as they entered the tank on Wednesday night. By then end of the night the game would have a total of 64 hits and 62 total penalty minutes.
The San Jose Sharks logged a total of eight powerplays, as they took advantage of the over aggressive Predators, and goaded them into making mistakes. While the Sharks only scored on one of the powerplays, spending almost an entire period’s worth of gametime killing penalties is exhausting, and leads to mistakes all over the ice.
San Jose took full advantage of those mistakes, and ended up netting four goals against Predator goalie Pekka Rinne. Perhaps the most notable goal came off a tip by captain Joe Pavelski. The second goal of the game gave Joe Thornton his seventh assist of the season, and secured him the number 20 spot of NHL all-time points leaders. The assist was Thornton’s 1400th career point. At this pace, he will be in the top fifteen by the end of the season.
The game’s final score was in 4-1 in favor of the Sharks, who received goals from Joonas Donskoi, Joe Pavelski, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, and Mikkel Boedker.
What’s next?
San Jose hopes to continue their winning streak on Friday as the welcome in the indomitable 10-2-1 Tampa Bay Lightning.
Game time is 7:30 PST.
The Nashville Predators continue their brutal California road trip Friday against the 6-5-1 Anaheim Ducks, and hop to end their losing streak before it swallows their early season success.
