~ Photo credit: San Jose Sharks
~ By Pearl Allison Lo
~ LOS ANGELES — The San Jose Sharks had their defense and offense clicking as they held onto their lead throughout the game against the Los Angeles Kings at Staples Center Monday.
San Jose goalie Martin Jones rebounded with his best showing since the last time the Sharks played the Kings, with a .972 save percentage against 36 shots. He had a shutout until 12:42 of the final frame.
Before the Kings’ goal, the Sharks and Jones had also scored seven straight unanswered goals versus Los Angeles, dating back to November 12.
On playing the Kings, Jones addressed the media, “It’s easier to prepare for games against these guys or any division games. Those are obviously big four-point games for us. We know what the standings are like, and we know how difficult it is.”
Meanwhile, the Kings, now on a four-game slide, matched a season-long losing streak from November, which occurred at the same time they faced the Sharks.
Darcy Kuemper was in net for Los Angeles the first time since December 16. He had his first regulation loss (5-1-3), as he made 29 saves.
The Sharks’ offense was led by the third line of Mikkel Boedker, Chris Tierney and Joonas Donskoi. Boedker had a goal, Tierney had a goal and assist and Donskoi had two assists. Dylan DeMelo, who returned from injured reserve, also had two assists. He and teammate Brenden Dillon finished +3 for the day.
On contributing right after his return, DeMelo uttered, “I think it just starts in the D-zone and just playing hard and whenever you got an opportunity you got to try and make the most of it the best you can. It’s not going to work every time, but at least you’re getting up there and being aggressive.”
Tierney made it 1-0 with the second shot of the game as DeMelo saved the puck from going out at the point before shooting. The puck then went to Donskoi, who circled around before passing across to a wide open Tierney. The Kings’ Christian Folin, Kuemper and Kurtis Macdermid were preoccupied with Donskoi.
“Joonas with a no-look pass, kind of just fed it backdoors…he’s been doing a lot of those lately, so not too surprised, but just happy that he found me,” replied Tierney. Donskoi now has five points in two games.
With 10:29 still left, San Jose had built a 9-1 shot lead–Tierney with two shots and the rest all different players.
Sharks’ coach Pete DeBoer commented, “Yeah…you know when you come in here, you have to be ready to play. The history in here is they they’ve usually taken it to us, the first 10 or 15 minutes of the game…wanted to make sure we were ready. I thought we were great right from the drop of the puck.”
Los Angeles had a similar game plan, but “we didn’t play good at all for 60 minutes tonight. We have to go back and look at some things and try to be better tomorrow,” answered forward Adrian Kempe.
The Kings looked a lot better in the second with 13 shots, but still went up by another goal. Dillon passed to DeMelo in the neutral zone, who shot at net from beyond the left faceoff circle. Melker Karlsson missed the rebound but Barclay Goodrow backed him up with a quick shot past Kuemper at 8:52.
Kyle Clifford tried charging the net with 7:30 left, but Jones stood his ground.
Tomas Hertl tried a shot around sprawled out Kuemper, but Folin made a foot save with 17 seconds left and also blocked a shot from Kevin Labanc with one second remaining.
Following their game trend, San Jose made it 3-0 in the third when Boedker took the puck from Donskoi’s skate up front in to another wide open net at 9:11. It was Boedker’s first goal since November 24. The play started in the opposite ice end as Tierney got his second point of the game.
On Boedker’s play, Tierney mentioned, “He had a lot of chances, thought he was skating well and getting to the net. When he’s going to the net and using his legs, he usually creates a lot of offense…”
Los Angeles’ Trevor Lewis scored into the open right side of the net from Marian Gaborik and Kempe at 12:42. The Kings put themselves out there in the third, outshooting the Sharks 17-5, to overall outshoot them 36-33.
San Jose re-established their three goal lead with 19.4 seconds left when Joe Thornton put in an empty netter with 20 seconds left in the game. The defensive pair of Justin Braun and Marc-Edouard Vlasic got the assists.
Regarding getting the team on the same page, Kings’ coach John Stevens replied, “We regroup. It’s one hockey game. I thought we had some good efforts from our key veterans but they cannot do it on their own. You go to your lineup, there’s young guys getting an opportunity to play more, young veterans getting an opportunity, more responsibility in the lineup…we have to get our team reset on both sides of the puck, and…play with a little urgency that’s necessary. We should be looking at each team like it’s a playoff game right now.”
Game notes: Lewis now has six points in his last six games. Sharks’ right wing Joel Ward also returned, out since January 7. He had a +2 rating with 13:21 of ice time.
Up next: San Jose heads to the second game of their three-game road trip, a back-to-back, as they face the Arizona Coyotes once again on Tuesday at 6 pm PT.
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