Sharks use their speed to take 3-0 lead in series
Speed kills. The Ducks, to be exact. San Jose got goals from eight skaters, Martin Jones made a postseason-career-high 45 saves and the Sharks took a stranglehold of their first-round playoff series by running Anaheim out of SAP Center in Game 3, 8-1.
“It’s easy to let your foot off the gas thinking it’s going to be an easy game,” Sharks forward Eric Fehr said. “Our guys did a good job of bringing our best effort right away.”
In establishing a franchise postseason record for goals, San Jose displayed its advantage in foot speed up and down the lineup throughout the game to set up a possible clincher in Wednesday’s Game 4.
“We put them in a deeper hole,” Sharks captain Joe Pavelski said. “We understand there’s a
lot of work to do. To eliminate teams is always tough.”
After the Sharks broke it open with four unanswered second-period goals, Pavelski, Evander Kane and Timo Meier put exclamation points on the blowout with powerplay strikes in the third period.
The Sharks’ second-period onslaught started when Joonas Donskoi capped a 2-on-1 break by scoring his first goal of the series at 1:15. Kane fed Donskoi, who had started the sequence by picking up a loose puck left when Anaheim defenseman Brandon Montour slipped at center.
San Jose converted another 2-on-1 at 3:41 when fourthliner Marcus Sorensen scored his second in two games with a nifty deke to pull goalie John Gibson to the near post before depositing the puck on his backhand into the vacant net.
Fehr brought the fans out of their seats at 13:43 with a great individual effort. He dipped around and fended off a slash from Andrew Cogliano before cutting inside Francois Beachemin and lifting a soft shot over Gibson.
San Jose completed the onslaught with the prettiest goal of the session. Tomas Hertl finished a beautiful tic-tac-toe play by whisking his second goal of the series past Gibson at 16:49 for a power-play goal.
“We had a really good second,” Pavelski said. “The game was still tight, and everyone was competing, Jones made some great saves. We got a lot of timely goals. It definitely felt like a complete game.”
Anaheim replaced Gibson with Ryan Miller to start the third.
Jones stopped all 19 shots the Ducks produced in the middle period.
“They were definitely trying to make a point of getting pucks to the net and just bang away,” Jones said. “We had much higher quality chances.”
The Sharks broke on top at 3:44 of the first period, thanks to a burst of speed from two of their swifter forwards.
Following an Anaheim turnover, Mikkel Boedker slipped a missed check by defenseman Hampus Lindholm and flicked a backhand pass from below the goal line to a crashing Logan Couture, who dropped to a knee to beat Gibson.
The Ducks drew even on their first power play. Rickard Rakell drilled the far top corner with a blast from the left circle 41 seconds into the 5-on-4 to tie the score. Briefly: Defenseman Brent Burns missed the second half of the third period. Head coach Peter DeBoer said the move was precautionary. … San Jose has dressed the same 20 players all three games.