Sharks Antti up with Niemi
San Jose goalie solid while Vancouver’s Schneider lets in a softie
First came the McSoftie. Then came the McSchoftie. What would come next?
That’s what the faithful were wondering when another soft goal looked like it might be the Vancouver Canucks’ undoing Tuesday at Rogers Arena.
After Roberto Luongo couldn’t glove a floater Sunday in a 4-2 loss at Calgary, it was Cory Schneider who did the same. On a short-handed second-period breakaway, the normally sound stopper fell to his knees as an Adam Burish shot floated past his glove.
The faux pas put the Canucks in a two-goal hole and with the way Antti Niemi was swallowing up shots, it appeared that the first goals of the season by Scott Gomez and Burish would give the San Jose Sharks their first regulation victory here since Nov. 29, 2009.
The Canucks would need a break and would need to get a body in front of Niemi to make a game of it. They got that break, got the screen and tied it up before Joe Pavelski scored the decisive goal in the skills session as the Sharks claimed a 3-2 shootout victory. It came after Chris Higgins and Logan Couture had exchanged goals in the four-round shootout show.
“Pretty entertaining, especially at the end and it’s frustrating to lose in the shootout — a little dissatisfying,” said Schneider. “I felt better in the second half of the game and how I finished off.”
The Burish effort nearly finished the Canucks off early and it was a goal Schneider obviously wanted back before this club mounted the comeback.
“I came out to challenge and Henrik got his stick on it just as he let it go and I missed it by a quarter of an inch,” said Schneider. “It as a tough one to give up. It was good to hold the fort in overtime but I’ve got to do it in the shootout.”
Schneider wasn’t the reason the Canucks lost. An 0-for-5 performance on the power play after going 0-for-10 in their previous five outings is becoming a real sore point for the Canucks.
“If your power play is minus-1, it’s tough to win games. We’ve got to start scoring goals and that’s the bottom line,” said Henrik Sedin. “Our power play should have come through for us late in the third and in overtime.”
The shootout came after Niemi got a toe on an Alex Burrows power-play chance in the extra session. It came after Schneider kept the Sharks from winning in regulation when he gloved a Logan Couture wrist shot. Burrows and Henrik Sedin also failed to convert power-play chances down low and Jason Garrison hit the post in the final minute of regulation time.
“Special teams are huge,” said Canucks winger Mason Raymond. “We’ve got to take away a few more of the sights lines. “Tonight, we deserved a better fate, but our record is not as good. We’re playing good hockey but we need to play better hockey.”
They did in the rally. When Daniel Sedin’s centring pass went off defenceman Matt Irwin and plopped into the crease, Henrik Sedin had a presence to backhand the puck home. And when Raymond and Jannik Hansen had another one of their great puck-possession shifts, it ended with Hansen converting Raymond’s drop pass while Chris Higgins provided the perfect screen.
Bracken Kearns, the son of former Canucks defenceman Dennis Kearns, was playing his first game for the Sharks, but the focus was really on which team was going to show.
Would it be the Sharks who won their first seven games and easily handled the Canucks in a 4-1 home-ice triumph Jan. 27? Or would it be the Sharks who then went 1-63, couldn’t buy a goal and entered Tuesday’s encounter as the league’s lowest-scoring team with just 44 in 20 games?
As for the Canucks, would it be the club that beat the Stanley Cup champions 5-2 on Saturday in a complete performance or the one that ran out of gas in Calgary on Sunday?
It was an ominous start for the Canucks. Alex Edler couldn’t control the puck at the Sharks blueline and was checked to the ice by Andrew Desjardins. He gathered himself in time to take a tripping minor and it set a bad tone.
A Marc-Edouard Vlasic shot rebounded back into the slot and with Jordan Schroeder blocking Schneider’s view, Gomez went high to the stick side. Edler then committed a turnover in his own zone and Chris Tanev dropped in front of a heavy Michal Handzus shot and took it off the right knee.
The defenceman hobbled to the bench and then to the room, but quickly returned to the ice. That was the good news.
The bad was that 17 first-period shots resulted in no goals and a problematic power play was going to continue to be a sore spot with Ryan Kesler sidelined another month with a broken right foot and Kevin Bieksa hobbled by a groin ailment.