Saturday, April 26, 2008

Familiar theme floats to the surface for the Sharks


With lessons supposedly learned from a close series with the Calgary Flames, it was thought that the San Jose Sharks would be more proactive in their own rink as they entered game one of their best of seven series with Dallas.

The Sharks played host to Dallas on Friday night and quickly went to work firing shots at Stars goaltender Marty Turco, the only problem was that Turco wasn’t inclined to let too many of them in.

While San Jose could not capitalize on their opportunities, Dallas did, thanks to Brendan Morrow’s two goal performance on the way to a 3-2 overtime victory for the visiting Stars.

Morrow put the game away at 4:39 of OT when he and Mike Riberio took the play deep into the Sharks end to pick up the overtime marker and once again send the locals of the Bay area scrambling to try and figure out their Sharks.

The two teams play a similar style of hockey, though the first game of this series was conspicuous by the lack of hitting that the both teams faced in their opening round. Instead, the two teams seemed to be more like prize fighters feeling each other out in an opening round as they test each others blue lines through the first three periods.

The Stars win on Friday, spurred brave talk of a West coast sweep for Sunday’s game, something that would certainly send the alarm bells ringing again in San Jose, who seem to have problems putting away opponents when the time is right.

Frustrating for a team that creates more than enough chances to knock their opponents out of a game, yet frequently come up on the short end of the scoreboard. Sunday offers the chance to reverse that perception.


San Jose Mercury News-- Sharks can't close the deal in Game 1
San Jose Mercury News-- Seeing stars
San Jose Mercury News-- Dallas feels at home in S.J.
San Jose mercury News-- Modano haunts us again
San Frannciso Chronicle-- Get ready for the slog
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NHL.com-- Stats Pack

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