Packing a punch in shutout
San Jose dominates Ottawa from start to finish, putting 50 shots on net while Dell makes 25 saves; fragile Senators put frustration on display
Marcus Sorensen said he wasn’t necessarily surprised when Ottawa Senators forward Ryan Dzingel grabbed him near the front of the San Jose net early in the third period and started to throw punches in his direction.
Perhaps Sorensen could sense the frustration. After all, the Sharks were taking full advantage of a fragile Senators team.
The Sharks jumped all over the Senators from the start and never let up in a 5-0 win at SAP Center. Logan Couture had a goal and two assists to reach 401 points for his NHL career and Aaron Dell made 25 saves for his second shutout of the season.
Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Melker Karlsson, Joe Pavelski and Tomas Hertl all scored for the Sharks, who held the Senators to just 14 shots through the first two periods.
After Dzingel’s fight with Sorensen, Alex Burrows was given a game misconduct with 5:09 to go in the third period as he caught Sharks defenseman Dylan DeMelo with a stick to the face. Ottawa, which now has just one win in its past 11 games, picked up 26 penalty minutes in the third period and Burrows was given a fighting major and a game misconduct.
Sharks coach Pete DeBoer didn’t have an update on DeMelo, who was bleeding as he left the ice, after the game.
“It was a butt end in the face. I
had a pretty clear view of it,” Couture said. “It’s unfortunate. He cuts him and gets him between the eyes. It’s something that doesn’t belong in this game and it’s a player that’s had a history.”
Coming into Saturday, the Sharks’ game against the Senators could have been perceived as their easiest on their three-game homestand.
Ottawa had gone 1-6-1 away from home since Nov. 19 and came into Saturday with a pedestrian 5-6-2 road record for the season. Since a blockbuster threeteam trade with Nashville and Colorado on Nov. 5 that saw Matt Duchene come from the Avalanche to Canada’s capital city, the Senators have gone 3-8-2 and came into Saturday 15th in the Eastern Conference.
The Sharks, who host Minnesota on Sunday, didn’t allow the Senators their first on goal until there was 7:18 left in the first period. By that point, the Sharks already had 10 shots and scored their first goal shortly after as Couture scored on a 2 on 1 with Kevin Labanc with 7:05 to go in the first.
The Sharks added goals by Vlasic and Karlsson in the second period, continuing the momentum they built from late in the second period of Thursday’s game against Carolina when they climbed back from a 4-1 deficit.
“It was an important game for us,” DeBoer said. “We really wanted to concentrate on having a good start. Obviously last game getting down 3-0 early against Carolina wasn’t the way we wanted to start here at home and I thought we fixed that tonight.
“We had a great first period and that kind of set the tone for the night.”
With Danny O’Regan in the minors and Joonas Donskoi and Mikkel Boedker both hurt, the Sharks re-formed much of their original No. 1 power-play unit they had at the start of the season. Brent Burns, Joe Thornton, Pavelski, Couture and Hertl formed the top unit, and Timo Meier, Chris Tierney, Labanc, Vlasic and Tim Heed on the second unit.
The Sharks finished with two power-play goals and 21 shots on net with the man advantage, with 13 of them coming in the third period. Their 10 goals over the course of two games is a season best.
“It was nice to score some goals, nice to score some power-play goals,” DeBoer said. “Guys have been working awful hard, generating a lot of chances. We haven’t finished enough this year, so it’s nice to have a night like that.
“Whether we can do that again (Sunday) night, I don’t know, but confidence is a big part of scoring, and there’s a lot of guys feeling good about themselves tonight.”
Dell came into Saturday with a 4-3-1 record and a 1.93 goals-against average that was tops among all NHL goalies with at least
“Obviously last game getting down 3-0 early against Carolina wasn’t the way we wanted to start here at home and I thought we fixed that tonight.” — Pete DeBoer, Sharks coach
10 games played.
• The Sharks announced Saturday that defenseman Paul Martin will begin a conditioning assignment with the Barracuda. Martin, 36, had been out of action for close to two months and was rusty when he returned against Carolina. There is no definitive timeline for how long Martin will need to be at the AHL level, although the maximum time allowed for a conditioning stint is two weeks.
• Forward Barclay Goodrow has a lower-body injury and will miss about a week, DeBoer said. Goodrow missed seven games from Nov. 18-Dec. 1 with another upper-body injury, and had scored two goals in three games since his return.