Blades of Teal
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San Jose Sharks Upend Flyers In Shootout

By Patrick Leiva|

Mar 28, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; San Jose Sharks center Tomas Hertl (48) and Philadelphia Flyers center Claude Giroux (28) battle for the puck during the first period at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

The San Jose Sharks and Philadelphia Flyers are two teams that have underperformed this season and played the part when they squared off Saturday afternoon. The Sharks outshot the Flyers 44-18 on the afternoon, but would need the shootout in order to decide things. Brent Burns would score the decisive goal in the fifth round to give the Sharks a 3-2 victory.

The Sharks came out sluggish in the early going, icing the puck three times within the first minute of action. However, San Jose would slowly find their way into the game and controlled the first period of play.

The Sharks struck first at the 4:38 mark of the initial period as Matt Irwin’s shot from the point found it’s way past Flyers netminder Steve Mason after a nice drive to the net by Chris Tierney and screen in front by Tommy Wingels.

Philadelphia managed to tie things up more than two minutes later after the puck caromed around in front of goaltender Alex Stalock before Michael Raffl would punch it in for his 20th on the season. San Jose would take the lead again in the later stages of the first behind who else but Joe Pavelski.

Pavelski took the puck behind the net off a feed from Logan Couture and tried to center it out front but it hit a Flyers defensemen and trickled in between the legs of Mason. However, the referee on the ice initially waved it off and it appeared the Sharks would be on the wrong end of another early whistle to nullify a good goal.

Following a review, the hockey operations department determined that it was a good goal since it was the “culmination of a continuous play where the result was unaffected by the whistle.” It was Pavelski’s 36th goal of the season and his 19th power-play goal, leaving him just two goals shy of Alex Ovechkin for the lead league in that department.

It was a fairly even second period that didn’t feature much in the way of scoring chances besides a Couture shorthanded breakaway that Mason was able to stop. Otherwise, it was an uneventful period that saw the Sharks outshoot the Flyers 7-5, but unable to put a third past Mason and a makeshift Flyers defense.

As Tim Panaccio of Comcast Sportsnet pointed out, the Flyers were missing four of their regular defensemen.  

The third period would see the Sharks come out strong, but Mason stood tall and allowed the Flyers a chance to even things up. Scott Hannan took a hooking penalty that enabled the league’s fourth-ranked power play unit the chance they needed. Claude Giroux would capitalize for his 23rd of the season to knot things up at two.

San Jose was able to kill off another Flyers power play in the waning moments of the third period to send the game to overtime. The Sharks would get their own opportunity to win it on the power play as Brayden Schenn went off for boarding, but San Jose was unable to capitalize.

In the shootout, Jakub Voracek would give the Flyers the early advantage but Melker Karlsson would even things up on San Jose’s third attempt. After a couple of Stalock saves, Burns would seal the deal to give the Sharks their second consecutive victory and even their record at 3-3-0 on their seven-game road trip.

While it was disappointing that San Jose could not win the game against a decimated Flyers defense, it was good to see Stalock pick up another win and another solid performance from Tierney who appears to be settling in at the NHL level.

San Jose now heads to Pittsburgh tomorrow night seeking their first three-game winning streak since the end of January and a winning road trip overall, which is pretty remarkable considering how this road trip began.

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