San Jose Sharks vs Detroit Red Wings knee-jerk reaction

Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

If you were looking for edge-of-your-seat hockey tonight as the San Jose Sharks took on the Detroit Red Wings, you probably went to bed disappointed. This wasn’t really a goaltending duel like 0-0 games can sometimes be. Neither offense was clicking tonight, the passes weren’t all that crisp and the highlight reel won’t be that fun to take in either.

A few thoughts on the game though.

• Already wrote about it in an individual post, but Tomas Hertl needs to keep his darn head up before he gets hurt.
• The Sharks didn’t attack like the should have. Detroit was missing its top pairing and the average age of four of the six defenders out on the ice was barely 24. With so much offensive firepower, there was an opportunity to really put the kids on their heals and make them turn around to get some pucks. That didn’t happen.
• Antti Niemi made the save of the night in the shootout against Todd Bertuzzi. It’ll be in GIF form within the hour and we’ll keep an eye out for you. It was truly a “holy smokes” save by Niemi though, and it was made all the better in that it sealed the win for San Jose.
• If there was a record for least entertaining San Jose vs Detroit game in history, it was shattered this evening. Did we mention this was a boring contest?
• There are no extra points for entertainment value, and the Sharks are still the only team in the NHL without a regulation loss. They pushed their points streak to a nine games. Only four teams stand between them and an unbeaten October.