Double whammy: Thornton ejected in loss
It won’t erase what happened the last time the Blues were in town, but St. Louis certainly made its mark at SAP Center on Saturday night.
The visitors played a physical brand of hockey and received stellar goaltending from one-time Sharks farmhand Carter Hutton en route to a 4-0 win over the team that eliminated them from the Western Conference finals last spring.
Hutton stopped 23 shots for his fifth career shutout as San Jose was blanked at home for the second time in 21 games.
What is left now for the Sharks, losers of two straight, is to wonder if Joe Thornton will receive supplemental discipline for a major penalty and game misconduct earned just over a minute after the Blues took a 2-0 lead midway through the middle period.
Thornton earned his early shower by spearing Blues center Peter Stastny at center ice at 11:09. Thornton’s last game misconduct came came Nov. 4, 2010, and he was subsequently suspended two games for striking another St. Louis forward, David Perron.
“I think he could have hit him a lot harder,” said Sharks center Logan Couture. “I don’t think it was worthy of the five minutes. The league is trying to protect players.”
Thornton was not available after the game.
“He plays hard, he competes,” Sharks captain Joe Pavelski said. “Something happened and he went there. That should fire us up if anything. It normally does. If you lose a guy, it doesn’t really matter what happens, we have to respond better than we did.”
The Sharks had an opportunity to break a scoreless tie in the second when 11 seconds after Blues forward Alexander Steen slashed Tommy Wingels, St. Louis defenseman Alex Pietrangelo did likewise to Thornton to give the Sharks an extended two-man advantage.
But after Pavelski missed a wide-open net by firing a shot off the side of the cage, he took out some frustration on Blues defenseman Colton Parayko and drew an interference penalty to cut short the 5-on-3 advantage.
Once Pietrangelo came out of the box to give the Blues their first power play, it wasn’t long before Parayko let fly with a slap shot from above the right circle that appeared to deflect off the stick of Sharks defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic and past goalie Martin Jones.
“It’s a night where the first half of the game it’s going pretty good,” Pavelski said. “We were set up to score on that 5-on-3, and I missed that open net. I took a penalty, they scored a quick one, and the momentum shifted.”
“We had some chances on the power play — you’ve got to score — 5-on-3, 4-on-3, at least get some better looks,” Couture said. “We didn’t generate anything, killed momentum and they go out and score.”
The Blues went up 2-0 at 10:01 when Perron scored his 11th by punching in a loose puck at the side of the net. They took a 3-0 lead at 9:16 of the third period when forward Jori Lehtera scored his fifth goal, and Steen added an empty-netter at 14:37. Briefly: Sharks defenseman David Schlemko returned to the lineup after missing five games with an upper-body injury. … Left wing Joonas Donskoi was out with an upper-body injury.