The Sharks snuff out rally by Columbus for a 3-1 victory.
Sharks unfazed by lengthy delays, beat Columbus for third straight home victory
SAN JOSE — The Sharks experienced a pair of unexpected delays Thursday night in their game against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Led by their special teams, the Sharks responded from both just fine.
Tomas Hertl scored twice, including an empty-netter with 0.8 seconds left, and David Schlemko had two assists as the Sharks earned an unusual 3-1 win over the Blue Jackets for their third straight victory on home ice to start the season.
The Sharks’ first two goals came from their second power play unit, as Joonas Donskoi scored with 7:01 to go in the first period and Hertl scored with 7:55 to go in the third. The Sharks’ power play is now 3-for7 on the homestand, which ends Saturday against the Nashville Predators.
“We want two units that can
go out there and score,” Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said. “Right now, the 5-on-5 goals are hard to come by. We’re creating chances, but the power play won us the game tonight.”
Sharks goalie Martin Jones stopped the first 23 shots he faced before Scott Hartnell scored with 2:50 to go in the game to cut the Sharks’ lead to one. Jones finished with 24 saves as he improved his record this year to 4-3.
The Sharks thought they had a two-goal lead earlier in the third after Brenden Dillon’s shot from inside the blue line got through traffic and past Blue Jackets goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. But after a coach’s challenge from Columbus’s John Tortorella, and a delay of several minutes, it was ruled that earlier in the sequence, Chris Tierney was offside before Patrick Marleau carried the puck across the blue line.
Play was also halted with 2:42 left in the second period as the lights that illuminate the ice surface inexplicably went out, leaving other house lights to keep the arena from going totally dark. A statement from the Sharks said “all other electrical systems and facility lighting operated normally” as arena staff is investigated the issue.
It didn’t take long for the lights to come back on, but officials decided, under rule 77.3, to proceed directly to the second intermission. After the intermission, the last 2:42 of the second period was completed before the teams switched sides and the third period began.
“I don’t know what time it is right now but with that and the disallowed goal it felt like a triple overtime type of game,” Sharks forward Joel War said. “Haven’t seen that before, but hopefully since we won maybe it happens again and we can capitalize.”
At the resumption of play, the two teams setting up for a faceoff inside the Blue Jackets’ blue line, just as they did before the power outage.
“There was a couple things there out of our control, but I thought considering that, we stuck with it and found a way,” DeBoer said. “It was a hard game at ice level. They came to play.”
On the opening goal, Schlemko saved a clearing attempt by Dalton Prout at the Columbus blue line, then found Donskoi with a diagonal pass at the faceoff dot to the left of Bobrovsky. Donskoi’s wrist shot squeezed under Bobrovsky’s glove and above his led pad for his first goal as the Sharks scored on the power play for second straight game.
Schlemko also had the second assist on Hertl’s goal
It was Schlemko’s first point as a Shark, as he was one of a handful of players looking to make more regular appearances on the scoresheet.
“Yeah, it’s nice to get that out of the way,” Schlemko said. “I feel like I’ve been getting lots of pucks to the net, so it’s nice to see a couple go in finally.”
Ward had a glorious chance to give the Sharks two-goal lead as he went in on a breakaway after receiving a long pass from Justin Braun. Ward’s wrist shot from in close, though, went off Bobrovsky’s left pad as he remained stuck on one goal for the season.
“We had some chances, he kept them in it pretty good,” Ward said of Bobrovsky, who finished with 26 saves. “We had quite a few Grade A chances.”
The Sharks killed penalties to Paul Martin, Hertl and Melker Karlsson in the first three periods, and are 18-for-19 over the last five games. The Sharks killed just three of six penalties in their first three games
“We had a few unlucky ones early and again, like our team game, guys didn’t get down,” DeBoer said. “They kept battling and its been very good the last few games.”