Streaking Sharks a cut above
Team much better now than 2016 Finals meeting with Penguins
SAN JOSE >> It’s getting to the point where it’s more than just a hot stretch. The Sharks might just be a really good team.
By earning their seventh straight win at SAP Center on Tuesday night, the Sharks improved to 16-3-2 since they held a closed-door meeting with general manager Doug Wilson on Dec. 2. Think about it: that’s more than a quarter of the season in which the Sharks have produced an .810 points percentage. Impressive.
The offensive fire power is real. The Sharks are averaging 4.29 goals per game during the 21game stretch. Most importantly, the Sharks have turned the Swiss cheese defense that plagued them over the first two months of the season into a solid block of cheddar, surrendering two goals or fewer in six consecutive games.
It’s helping Martin Jones, who struggled with a sub-.900 save percentage throughout most of the first half, catch fire. With 20 saves Tuesday, Jones has now posted a .927 save percentage in six January starts, his most impressive stretch of the season. That’s important because goaltending might be the only thing that can derail the Sharks train right now.
Here’s what we learned as To-
mas Hertl charged a 5-2 Sharks win over the Pittsburgh Penguins with his second career hat trick: THE SHARKS HAVE COME A LONG WAY SINCE THE 2016 STANLEY CUP FINAL >> The Sharks went into the 2016 Stanley Cup Final as favorites. They walked out of the series in a different stratosphere than the Penguins, who overwhelmed them by playing a speedier, modernized brand of hockey.
On Tuesday, the Sharks proved that they’ve bridged the gap significantly.
With the additions of Erik Karlsson, Evander Kane, Timo Meier and Marcus Sorensen, the Sharks are a much faster team. They’ve added speed while maintaining a heavy style of play. Tomas Hertl, Kane, Meier and Lukas Radil are all power forwards that can move and make plays with the puck.
In addition, Wilson has put together the best puckmoving blue line in the league, adding Karlsson to a group that already included Brent Burns. That means head coach Pete DeBoer can have either Karlsson or Burns on the ice for about 50 minutes a game. Figure out a way to deal with that.
All of it added up to a role reversal Tuesday as it
was the Penguins who left the building flabbergasted. Keep in mind, it was a Penguins team that entered the contest nearly as hot as the Sharks, winning 12 of 15 games before Tuesday’s meltdown at the Tank.
“They’re one of the better teams we’ve played this season,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said.
The Sharks are still writing the story of the 2018-19 season, but right now it’s clear that they’re a more dynamic group than the squad that reached the final in 2016.
“It’s the balance, the scoring,” Thornton said. “It seems like a lot of guys are going at the same time. I credit a lot of that to the defense, too. The defense is giving the puck to the forwards and they go.
“This team is playing real well right now.”
MORE LINE DEPTH THAN THE DEPTH MASTERS >> The Penguins captured two Stanley Cups on the strength of their line depth. With Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel skating on three separate lines, the Penguins created serious matchup headaches throughout both Cup runs. The third line proved to be particularly troublesome as opponents struggled to contain the trio of Kessel, Nick Bonino and Carl Hagelin with their depth lines.
On Tuesday, the Sharks turned the tables, tilting
the ice with a three-headed attack that features Logan Couture and Meier on one line, Joe Pavelski and Thornton on another and Evander Kane and Hertl on the third.
“We’ve been looking for that since I’ve gotten here and we’ve had it at different points,” DeBoer said. “When we’ve gotten beat, it’s usually by a team that’s been a little deeper than us.
“We didn’t have a lot of it early in the year, but we’re starting to get more and more of it now.”
Like those Penguins teams, the Sharks third line did a lot of the heavy lifting, netting a pair of goals while producing 11 shots and five high-danger scoring chances, according to Natural Stat Trick.
In fact, the combination of Kane, Hertl and Joonas Donskoi saw the most ice time in even strength situations, taking shifts against Crosby, Malkin and Kessel’s lines. With three goals from Hertl and a trio of assists from Kane, the line has now produced 34 points in eight games since DeBoer put it together in Edmonton on Dec. 29.
“(Hertl) and Evander Kane were on a different level tonight,” DeBoer said. “They both were fast and physical and heavy. Real hard to handle when they’re playing like that.” THORNTON CELEBRATES HIS MILESTONE THE RIGHT WAY >> Another day at the rink, another
milestone for Thornton.
After he skated in his 1,500th NHL game on Nov. 8 and scored his 400th goal on Nov. 13, Thornton got to celebrate a local achievement Tuesday, suiting up for his 1,000th game with the Sharks.
Thornton made the game even more memorable by scoring his 10th of the season at 3:39 with a shot from above the circles to give the Sharks a 3-1 lead.
“Jumbo’s breaking a record every shift, so we’re kind of getting sick and tired of it as a group,” Kane joked. “1,000th game as a Shark, passing (Mario) Lemieux, (Wayne) Gretzky and whoever else on whatever list he’s climbing. It’s good to see him starting to find the back of the net, big one timer there. It was a big goal to help us extend the lead.”