Sports: Sharks tie game late but fall in OT to Sabres, 3-2.
His two third-period goals help Sharks get point in Buffalo
BUFFALO, N.Y. >> Joe Pavelski lifted the Sharks halfway out of the grave Tuesday, scoring twice in the third period to salvage a point against the NHL’s hottest team. After Saturday’s debacle in Las Vegas, he and his teammates will take it.
The Sharks captain buried a feed from Brent Burns at 11:29 of the third to give his team life. Then, he tied it at 2-2 on the power play, stuffing the puck in from the side of the net with 3:18 left in regulation for his team-leading 15th goal. With a two-goal night, Pavelski has now scored eight goals and amassed 12 points in the Sharks’ (12-9-4) past eight games.
“I’m Pav’s biggest fan. He gives us everything
every night,” goalie Martin Jones said.
Still, it wasn’t enough to end the Buffalo’s (17-6-2) historic winning streak as Jeff Skinner gave the Sabres their 10th win in a row by scoring his 19th at 1:41 of overtime.
Here’s what we learned in the Sharks’ 3-2 overtime loss in Buffalo.
1. THAT’S WHAT SHARKS HOCKEY SHOULD LOOK LIKE >> Backup goalie Aaron Dell spelled it out perfectly after practice Tuesday morning: the Sharks are still looking for the middle ground.
First, the Sharks pushed too hard for offense, cheating the defensive side of the game. Then, they tightened things up too much, losing the aggressiveness that’s a prerequisite for success in the modern NHL. Over the past three weeks, they’ve been going back and forth, hitting that sweet spot a couple times along the way.
Despite the inconsistency, the message remains the same: with all the skill in the Sharks dressing room, the offense will eventually come if the team plays the right way. They proved it Tuesday night.
After going more than six periods without a goal, the Sharks found a way to score two late and earn a point on a night where they dedicated themselves to playing an honest game. Pavelski wasn’t surprised his team got a small reward for doing things right Tuesday.
“That’s always the way it is,” the Sharks captain said. “I don’t think it matters what kind of skill you have, you can’t cheat for offense. You’ll find yourselves on the wrong of the puck.”
The game also confirmed the big takeaway from Saturday’s 6-0 loss in Las Vegas: quality goaltending requires commitment to team defense. Dell pitched two shutouts in a week when the Sharks surrendered just one odd-man rush in 120 minutes against St. Louis and Vancouver. Then, when the defense hung him out to dry against the Golden Knights, he got shelled for six goals against.
On Tuesday, the Sharks surrendered just eight highdanger scoring chances to the Sabres (Natural Stat Trick), and not surprisingly, Jones put together one of his better efforts of the season, making 28 saves on 31 shots. The Sharks’ Joe Thornton rides Sabres forward Jeff Skinner into the boards in the third period of Tuesday’s game in Buffalo. The Sabres won 3-2 in OT, their 10th win in a row.
The only major blemish was Burns’ failure to pick up Na- than Beaulieu on the weak side when Sam Reinhart fed him a pass through the slot for the Sabres second goal at 4:14 of the third.
The NHL isn’t a league that hands out points for moral victories, but the Sharks gave themselves a template to follow Tuesday.
“That’s the league. It’s tightening up,” coach Pete DeBoer said.
2. TIP YOUR CAP >> Burns often says, the enemy gets a say in it, too. The Sharks enemy Tuesday night is making its voice heard across the NHL this season.
With the overtime win, the Sabres didn’t just tie a franchise-record winning streak set in 1984 and matched in 2006, they catapulted themselves ahead of the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Nashville Predators into first place in the entire league with 36 points.
Keep in mind, the Sabres earned the NHL’s first-overall pick last season after finishing 31st in the league with 62 points. What’s remarkable about the Sabres 10game winning streak is that they’ve managed to pull out six wins after regulation, going 4-0 in overtime and 2-0 in shootouts. That’s a team playing with confidence.
The Sabres hot streak made the single point even more valuable to the Sharks.
“They’ve won 10 in a row. Their goalie’s been hot,” DeBoer said. “That’s a good point for us.”
3. EVANDER KANE ALMOST WRITES HIMSELF A STORYBOOK ENDING TO HOMECOMING GAME >> The lasting memory of Kane’s first game in Buffalo against his former-squad will be the goal that could have been.
With 1:47 left in regulation, Kane received an opportunity to complete the Sharks comeback when he got a look from the doorstep off the rush. Instead of writing himself a storybook finish, he flipped a backhanded shot wide of the net.
“I don’t know if I got slashed or it just bounced over my stick there when I went to the backhand,” Kane said. “That was a tough one to not finish.”
Otherwise, Kane’s return to Buffalo went mostly as expected. He received a healthy applause mixed in with a few boos when they welcomed him back on the cube in the first period.
“It felt good, felt comfortable,” Kane said of his return. “We did some good things, played well. Just didn’t capitalize.”