Sharks grab hold of first place in the West
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -From not even close to best in the west in just 10 weeks.
The Sharks moved into first place in the Pacific Division and the Western Conference on Monday, leapfrogging the Calgary Flames and the Winnipeg Jets with 75 points by earning a 7-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks. With the win, the Sharks completed their four-game road swing through Western Canada with a perfect record.
The Sharks move into the Western Conference's penthouse puts an exclamation mark on a remarkable turnaround that started on Dec. 2 after the Sharks got thumped by the woeful Ottawa Senators in Erik Karlsson's homecoming to his "forever city."
Earlier in that trip, Logan Couture said the Sharks weren't even close to being in the Stanley Cup conversation following a loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Nov. 28. Now, they're at the forefront of those talks, posting a 22-6-2 since Dec. 2, leading the NHL in scoring by averaging 4.23 goals per game during that span.
The Sharks current six-game winning streak is even more impressive considering that the team is playing without Karlsson, who missed his eighth straight game on Monday with what head coach Pete DeBoer is calling a "muscle injury" in his lower body. The Sharks are 7-2-1 on the season without Karlsson.
Joe Thornton continued to leave his imprint on the NHL's record books on Monday. By setting up Kevin Labanc's fourth goal in two games at 17:30 of the second, Thornton collected his 1,050th career helper, passing Gordie Howe to move into ninth place on the NHL's alltime assists list. In the process, he also tied Teemu Selanne for 15th place on the NHL's all-time scoring list, picking up his 1,457th career point.
Evander Kane stayed red hot, as well, scoring two more goals to give him 26 on the year, 15 since Jan. 1, which is tied for tops in the NHL, and five on the Sharks four-game road swing through Western Canada.
Kane's linemate, Tomas Hertl, also made his presence felt, scoring his 26th in the second, his fourth goal of the trip.
Joe Pavelski became the 10th NHL player to score 30 goals this season, reaching the mark at 14:05 of the third.
Timo Meier is hoping to join Kane, Hertl and Pavelski in the hot-scorers club. He opened the scoring just 1:04 into
ing combine in Indianapolis, Feb. 26-March 4, after his name was among those invited by the NFL. The A’s had hoped Murray still would show up to camp Feb. 15, the club’s official report date for position players.
NFL draft experts project Murray to be taken in the first round after his historic 2018 football season with the Sooners.
The A’s will place Murray on the restricted list and still hold his baseball rights. But for now, Oakland has wasted the No. 9 overall pick from last year’s baseball draft.
“We’ve known from the tone of the conversations that he could choose the NFL,” A’s general manager David Forst said. “We’ll focus on what we need to do to make sure if he comes back to baseball at some point, he’ll come back with the A’s.”
Expecting Murray to return to baseball is an optimistic approach, one manager Bob Melvin doesn’t foresee as a likely scenario. Melvin watched Murray closely this past season and was impressed with what he was able to accomplish with a smallerthan-usual stature for a quarterback.
Melvin said will be rooting for Murray throughout his football career, one which he expects to be very successful.
“I have a hard time believing he’s not going to have a great football career,” Melvin said, noting Murray’s resilience while leading a furious comeback that fell just short against Alabama in the College Football Playoff semifinal. “He’s a premier quarterback and athletic. The guy is a gamer and I think he’s going to have a long football career.”
While the A’s get no compensation in the form of a draft pick, Murray will have to return the bulk of his $4.66 million signing bonus. The quarterback will return $1.29 million of the $1.5 million he already has received. He also forfeits $3.1 million due March 1.
The A’s knew the risk they were taking by drafting Murray back in June. They allowed him to play one more season of football as the successor to the previous year’s Heisman Trophy winner in Baker Mayfield with the hope of him focusing solely on baseball shortly after the season. That gamble backfired, but like Beane, Forst said the A’s felt the supreme talent on the diamond outweighed the risk.
“We took the best athlete on the board and what we thought was the best player on the board,” Forst said. “We don’t regret the pick at all.
“We’ll make up for it. We have a first round pick this year and a lot of guys we picked last year that we liked. You never like to lose a firstround pick or the opportunity that comes with it, but we like the shape our system is in.”