SHARKSPAGE

WCSF Game 2: Joe Thornton game winning goal sparks 4-3 win, Sharks will head to Detroit up 2 games

#19 JOE THORNTON SCORES THE GAME WINNING GOAL AT 12:37 OF 3RD

#22 DAN BOYLE AND #36 DWIGHT HELMINEN SKATE THROUGH THE SHARK HEAD

GOALTENDER #35 JIMMY HOWARD REACTS TO THORNTON GW GOAL

The number of teal and black flags around HP Pavilion rivaled the number of Mexican national flags for pre-Cinco de Mayo celebrations Sunday afternoon in San Jose. Center Joe Thornton gave the Sharks faithful something to celebrate. Thornton punched home his first goal of the playoffs, a game winner that capped a come-from-behind 4-3 win over the Detroit Red Wings.

The Sharks will head East with a 2-0 series lead.

Thornton was a handful for Detroit from the drop of the puck, including when the “Team Canada” line with Marleau and Heatley was reunited in the third period. Marleau returned after missing the opening game of the series with an undisclosed illness. The trio combined for 6 points, including a goal and 3 assists in the third period comeback. “I thought we played well all night,” Thornton told the media after the game. “We kept moving our feet, we looked fast, and ultimately the refs had to call some penalties.”

San Jose Sharks head coach Todd McLellan said it would be a challenge for the top line to be put back together down 3-2 in the final period. “They played a lot all year when we needed big goals, they got them for us. There was a lot of talk of them being shut out in the first round,” McLellan said. “I didn’t do it for our lack of performance, I had a gut feeling it was time to put them back together.”

The reunion worked. Marleau, Heatley and Thornton each had a shot attempt on an early 5-on-3 power play. With a mass of humanity collapsed around the net, and goaltender Jimmy Howard extended 10 feet off the goal line making a kick save, it fell to Pavel Datsyuk to play goalie on Dany Heatley. Datsyuk did surprisingly well, credit him with a butterfly save and a stick save in addition to his goal, assist, and team high 7 shots. An unchecked Joe Pavelsi beat three Wings to the rebound. He tucked it into the empty net to tie the game at 3-3.

The big line also connected for the game winning goal nearly 8 minutes later. After unloading a heavy slap shot for the go-ahead goal in the second period, Nicklas Lidstrom’s stick disintegrated on another attempt late in the third. Dany Heatley picked up the loose puck and exploded down the right wing. A snapped shot on goal was kicked by Jimmy Howard into defenseman Brian Rafalski. The deflection set the table for Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau, both driving the net hard. Thornton buried it.

“I don’t think we should question Jumbo’s confidence at all. I think if you purely evaluate his play on goals and assists, I think you are very mistaken,” Todd McLellan said in a comment that should resonate with more than a few East coast hockey scribes. “He has to contribute in the faceoff circle. He has to play against a guy like Pavel Datsyuk… we ask him to penalty kill now, we ask him to keep his shifts short and not turn over the puck.” Thornton held the puck on his stick well in the first, forcing Detroit to play the body hard in order to challenge him. On a breakaway in the second period, Thornton fired a low shot far side that Howard stopped. Driving for the rebound, Thornton cut off a lane and forced a large collision between a Detroit defenseman and Howard.

The Sharks opened the game with a strong shift-to-shift physical intensity, and carried it through for 60 minutes. 6-foot-4, 220-pound Heatley and 6-foot-4, 230-pound Thornton are exhibit 1a and 1b on how the exacting physical toll of this series may wear down the smaller Red Wings. On Sunday night, it was an accumulation of incidents that started to wear Detroit down by the third period until only Pavel Datsyuk appeared to be threatening to tie the game. Of forwards Dan Cleary, Jason Williams, Kris Draper, Darren Helm and Thomas Holmstrom, many of the forwards posted up in front of Evgeni Nabokov, all are under 200-pounds. Of that group, only Holmstrom is 6 feet tall.

At the line of scrimmage in front of Evgeni Nabokov, a fascinating battle in the trenches is being waged by both coaches. At times during the first game the Sharks defense fronted the Red Wings several feet out from the net. They would mix up challenging the shooter and trying to block shots, along with the physical crease clearing duty. Sunday night the Sharks were getting a better edge on one-on-one battles. Rob Blake pasted Tomas Holmstrom as he tried to release around him to get to the net in the first. Douglas Murray lost a heavyweight battle for body position with Todd Bertuzzi. In a 30 second span in the second period, Blake hammered Cleary to the ice after he set up in front. It took 3-4 cross checks before Marc-Edouard Vlasic could send him to the ice again. After a quick change, Boyle won a battle for position inside of Tomas Holmstrom before the Sharks moved the puck up ice.

A veteran and disciplined Red Wings squad melted down late in the game. 5 of 10 minor penalties Detroit took on the night were called in the third period, including a crushing too-many-men on the ice penalty that effectively ended any comeback opportunity with 1:04 left. “There is no sense questioning anything, we are in charge… we can’t be going to the box,” Detroit head coach Mike Babcock said. “We have to look after our own sticks and our own play, but it can’t be 10-4.”

Of the Sharks 4 minor penalties, one was a goaltender interference call on Dany Heatley late in the third. Detroit registered two goaltender interference calls, one on Justin Abdelkader in the first, and another on Todd Bertuzzi in the second. As a coach, it would be tough to fault players for the calls as it was evidence of the net front presence both teams are trying to establish. On the flip side, many of the Detroit stick waiving, hooking and holding penalties were of the outworked and trying not to get beat variety.

The inverted pyramid style of mainstream sports reporting puts the most important facts at the top of the story, then fills out the details below. The Sharkspage reverse inverted pyramid puts the exploits of the first star of the game last. Sunday night that would have to be another 2 goals and an assist by Plover, Wisconsin native Joe Pavelski. The 3-point night increased his scoring streak to 5 games, a span over which he has registered 12 points and three straight multi-goal games. Pavelski leads the 2010 Stanley Cup Playoffs with 9 goals.

In addition to a power play goal and his game tying goal in the third, Pavelski earned the primary assist on Ryane Clowe’s between the legs tally in the first period. He faked an outside spin move, then cut inside of the defenseman and lasered a hard pass to Ryane Clowe on the doorstep. With his back to the net, Clowe spun and deflected the puck between his legs to beat Jimmy Howard. The crowd erupted with the digital decibel meter on the scoreboard reaching its largest mark of the night, 114.4.

According to the London Telegraph, 114 decibels is more than a Maria Sharapova tennis shriek (103.7), louder than a snow mobile (110), and equal to that of a jet engine. “The Big Pavelski” did not let loose with any tennis shrieks, but he did give one Cheechoo-esque fist pump goal scoring celebration. He also finished with a game high 11 shots on goal and a dominating 13-3 performance from the faceoff circle (81%).

A photo gallery from the game is available here.

San Jose Sharks lines and pairings:

Heatley-Thornton-Couture
Clowe-Pavelski-Setoguchi
Marleau-Malhotra-Mitchell
McGinn-Nichol-Helminen

Boyle-Murray
Blake-Vlasic
Demers – Huskins

Nabokov

Detroit Red Wings lines and pairings:

Holmstrom-Datsyuk-Franzen
Zetterberg-Filppula-Bertuzz
Draper-Helm-Williams
Miller-Abdelkader-Cleary

Lidstrom-Rafalski
Kronwall-Stuart
Ericsson-Lilja

Jimmy Howard

[Update] San Jose sees octopus, raises it with shark eating baby octopus – Greg Wyshynski for Yahoo Puck Daddy.

Reader Mark S. was watching the San Jose Sharks host the Detroit Red Wings in Game 2 of their Western Conference series when all of a sudden Jaws 3-D broke out when Joe “The Big” Pavelski scored his eighth of the postseason. Mark sent the photo above and wrote:

So as I was standing cheering for the first goal of the Sharks game, a fan from Section 114 threw a shark on the ice, as many may have seen on TV. The shark was moved with the snow scoop. No word on if [San Jose mascot] Sharkie took the shark and put it back at his house.

Ah, but that’s not all, apparently. Comcast SportsNet Bay Area reporter Brodie Brazil tweeted that a “dead shark thrown on the ice just now had a baby octopus in its mouth.”