by Jerry Feitelberg

The Sharks beat the Red Wings in a Shoot-out

The San Jose Sharks began a five game road trip Monday night in Detroit. The Sharks and Red Wings had been long time opponents the Western Conference but the league re-aligned the division and the Sharks will play the Red Wings just twice this year, once in Detroit and once in San Jose.

The Sharks started the road trip with a 1-0 win over the Red Wings winning the game in a shoot-out.

The Sharks’ Dan Boyle was not available as he is recovering from the wicked hit he took last week in St. Louis. Forward Brett Burns also did not play as he was hit in the mouth with a stick Saturday night

and was having dental work done.

Neither the Sharks nor the Red Wings could produce any offense at all. There was no scoring in any of the three periods. The game went to a five minute overtime period but neither team could put the puck in the net.

The Red Wings sent out Pavel Datsyuk, Daniel Alfredsson and Todd Bertuzzi to try and beat Niemi in the first three rounds of the shoot-out. The Sharks countered with Patrick Marleau, Logan Couture and rookie Tomas Hertl .

The Red Wings went first. Antti Niemi stopped Datsyuk and Wings’ goalie Jimmy Howard caught a break when Marleau’s shot hit the post. Alfredsson failed to score but the Sharks’ Logan Couture

beat Jimmy Howard put the Sharks up 1-0. Todd Bertuzzi was the last chance for the Wings and he

left the ice talking to himself as Niemi stopped his shot as he sprawled across the net while lifting his right leg and blocked the shot with his pads. It was Niemi’s best save of the year.

Game notes- Sharks’ goalie Antti Niemi stopped all 24 shots he faced while the Wings’ Jimmy Howard made 27 saves. Couture recorded his eighth career shoot-out goal and fifth game winner of his career.

The Sharks improve to 8-0-1 good for 17 points while the Red Wings drop to 6-3-1 for the season.

The NHL announced that Patrick Marleau was named as one of the three stars this week.

The Sharks announced that forwards Freddie Hamilton and John McCarthy were recalled from Worcester of the AHL while forward Matt Pelech was assigned to Worcester.

McCarthy has played in two games with the Sharks this season while Hamilton is looking to make his NHL debut. Hamilton is from Toronto and his parents traveled to Detroit to watch him play.

Pelech played five games with the Sharks scoring one goal and 22 penalty minutes.

Next stop for the Sharks is Thursday night in Boston then they play Montreal on Saturday and Ottawa on Sunday. The road trip concludes Wednesday night when the Sharks play the LA Kings.