Photo courtesy of San Jose Sharks.

By Titus Wilkinson (@TitusWisme)

SAN JOSE- The Sharks continued their five game home stand against an Eastern Conference opponent the New Jersey Devils.

This game would be the second and final meeting between the two teams with the first game surprisingly enough going to the Sharks by a final of 6-3. That win over New Jersey was also the Sharks first road win of the season with Kahkonen doing most of the work making 44 saves.

Another surprising stat heading into this one is the fact that the Devils and the Sharks over their last ten share the same record of 4-5-1.

Mackenzie Blackwood faced off against his former team who heading into his one was sporting a 9-18-3 record with a 3.51 GAA and .898 SV%. On the other side of the ice it was Nico Daws in between the pipes who had a 7-8-0 record with a .895 SV % and 3.30 GAA.

Of course the biggest former player in this one was Timo Meier who was making his big return to SAP Center.

For the Sharks Filip Zadina was coming in as their hottest scorer with five points in four games.

Speaking of Zadina he almost scored just a couple minutes into this game as he wrapped one around the net that hit the far post and ricocheted out.

New Jersey ended up getting the first power play opportunity in this one as Henry Thrun blatantly interfered with Tyler Toffoli. While the power play did look threatening it looks like the media will continue to pester them about it as they did not score.

Late in the first a couple of interesting events happened. The first one being Blackwood exited the game during a break in the action as Kahkonen came in to replace him. Only a minute after that Alexander Barabonov found Nico Sturm wide open back door as he tapped home his fourth of the season. When the Sharks score first they are 11-8-3. The Devils on the other hand are 18-22-2 when their opponents score first.

It didn’t take long for the Devils to tie things up in the middle frame as less than four minutes in Jesper Bratt slid home his 22nd of the season. The goal came of an odd man rush between him and Timo Meier as they played a little bit of give-and-go before Bratt finished the play off.

Things continued to fall apart when Henry Thrun made a costly turnover that fead a Jack Hughes breakaway. Hughes did not miss as he snapped one in between the pads of Kahkonen making it 2-1 with the goal being his 19th of the season.

The Devils got their second power play of the night on a hold by Nikita Okhotiuk and would score as Timo Meier scored against his former team. At least it appeared that way until David Quinn challenged the goal for offside. He’d end up winning that challenge and the Sharks killed off the rest of the penalty.

That 2-1 score didn’t last long as Nico Hischier found a streaking Kevin Bahl who fired home a slap-shot from in close for his first goal of the season.

The Sharks would get a power play of their own later in the period but did not score keeping things at 3-1 heading into the final frame.

For San Jose they only have two wins when trailing after two periods so the odd were definitely not in the home teams favor.

The final period in this one felt like the Sharks from the beginning of the season who would casually give up ten goals a game came back to play. Before the ten minute mark had passed the Devils scored four goals with the third and fourth coming only a minute apart. Colin Miller and Bredan Smith got the first two while Dawson Mercer and Nico Hischier got the next two.

The last goal in this game would be scored by the Sharks as Justin Bailey whipped around and fired one that deflected off of a defender and in.

With the victory the Devils improve to 30-25-4 with 64 points. The loss makes the Sharks record 15-37-5 with 35 points.

The shots in this one favored the Devils at 45-31 while the Sharks went 0/1 on the power play and the Devils went 0/2.

Blackwood would not return to the game as Kahkonen would have to stay in.

The three stars of the game were: 1st: Nico Hischier 2nd: Jack Hughes 3rd: Jesper Bratt

The last game of this home stand will be against the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.