Dell shuts door on Vancouver
Goalie has 41-save night in shutout as San Jose finishes off its homestand with a 4-1 record
SAN JOSE >> The Sharks will gladly take the two points that came with their 5-0 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night. Goalie Aaron Dell was stellar, the Sharks’ penalty kill did its job and Tomas Hertl broke out of a mini scoring slump.
Still, the Sharks will go into Sunday’s game against the Pacific Division-leading Los Angeles Kings knowing they have a few things to clean up.
The Sharks frittered away four power-play chances and misfired on a handful of other scoring opportunities to help the Canucks hang around. Dell’s 41 saves — for his second career shutout — were the biggest reason why San Jose was able to close out its five-game homestand with a 4-1 record.
“We need to be a lot better than we were tonight to have a chance against (the Kings). We know that,” said Sharks center Logan Couture, who had two goals against the Canucks. “They haven’t played in a few days, they’re going to be rested and the Staples Center’s not easy to play in. It’s going to be a challenge. Hopefully we can play a lot better than we did tonight.”
Couture and Chris Tierney each added an empty-net goal in the final 1:41 of the third period, and Tierney added a penalty shot goal with 12.2 seconds left, to make the final score more flattering than perhaps it should have been for the home team.
“We’ve lost pretty,” Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said, “and I’ll take an ugly win any day over a pretty loss.”
The Canucks had outshot the Sharks 17-8 in the third period before Couture’s empty-netter with
1:41 to go. Vancouver also outshot the Sharks 12-2 at one point in the second period, before Couture’s shorthanded goal on a breakaway at the 15:59 mark gave San Jose a two-goal cushion.
Tomas Hertl, who came into Saturday with a ninegame goalless drought, had a goal and an assist.
The line of Hertl, Couture and Melker Karlsson had been held without a point the past three games before Saturday.
“Any goal, I’ll take it because last couple of games I’ve been struggling,” Hertl said. “I got a lot of chances but (couldn’t) score and finally I did. It was a good game for our line. We needed this one and now we have a huge game against L.A.”
The Sharks had an 11-4 edge in shots with just under seven minutes left in the first period. Dell finished the period with 10 saves, including one on a
point-blank chance by Bo Horvat late in the first period as the Sharks were killing a penalty to Timo Meier.
Dell, making his fourth start of the season, also stopped Derek Dorsett’s shot on a Canucks’ 2 on 1 when the Sharks were up by one and on their fourth power play. The Sharks had four shots on goal in 6:38 of time with the man advantage, as two of their power plays were cut short by their own penalties.
Dell finished with six saves when the Sharks were short-handed, as the Canucks went 0 for 5 with the man advantage.
“We did a really good job of keeping them to the outside,” Dell said. “They didn’t have that many quality chances. Our penalty kill was great. They didn’t have a lot of power-play chances. I think that really contributed to tonight.”
Considering how bunched up the Pacific Division was going into Saturday’s game, it figured to be an important weekend. Not necessarily because it’s vital to climb the standings in mid-November, but because
you don’t want to fall too far back.
Going into Sunday, the Kings have 24 points, followed by surprising Vegas with 21. Vancouver, Calgary and the Sharks all have 18 points, followed by Anaheim with 17. The Sharks have a 9-4 record since they were walloped 4-1 by the Kings on Oct. 7 at SAP Center.
• Jamie Baker is taking a leave of absence from his duties as the Sharks’ color analyst for NBC Sports California to attend to a personal matter, the team announced in a statement Saturday afternoon.
In Baker’s absence, Bret Hedican will handle color commentating duties on NBCSCA and David Maley will fill Hedican’s role as the color analyst on the Sharks’ Radio Network, joining play-by-play announcer Dan Rusanowsky.
Baker, 51, played 186 games for the Sharks, mostly from 1992-1996, and played one last game for San Jose on Oct. 10, 1999 before his retirement. Baker scored one of the biggest goals in franchise history, netting the game-winner in Game 7 of the Sharks’ upset of the Detroit Red Wings in the first round of the 1994 playoffs.
This season was Baker’s 13th in the Sharks’ broadcast booth, and his fourth as the full-time television commentator alongside play-by-play commentator Randy Hahn. Prior to joining the television broadcasts, Baker was alongside Rusanowsky in the radio booth.