Photo courtesy of San Jose Sharks Twitter. Logan Couture gets warmed sporting the Sharks military appreciation jersey.
By Titus Wilkinson
SAN JOSE–In what was a close game up until the third the Sharks and Flames battled it out on Sunday night with the Flames getting the win 5-2.
The game kicked off with the Flames putting on the pressure as Kahkonen had to be sharp early on.
That pressure by Calgary paid off as in their own zone Jaycob Megna made a terrible pass essentially giving Tyler Toffoli a goal. Which he did capitalize on getting his 11th goal of the season and making it 1-0 early with no assists on the goal.
The domination continued as at the 9:23 mark of the first period the shots favored the Flames at 7-1.
A glimmer of hope did appear for San Jose as Adam Ruzicka took a tripping penalty getting the power play unit on the ice.
On that power play it did not take long for San Jose to capitalize as Karlsson fead it to Timo Meier who sat wide open waiting to one-time the puck in. Depositing the puck in the net Meier got his 16th goal of the season but more importantly Karlsson got his 700th point of his career with the assist.
Not long after the game was tied up by Meier the Flames had a chance to take the lead back with Andrew Mangiapane getting a breakaway. His shot ended up ringing off the right post keeping the game tied.
Adding on to what already had been a rough night Megna took a high sticking penalty putting the Flames on the power play. The Sharks did end up killing it with Calgary getting few chances.
The first period ended in a tie with the shots favoring the Flames at 10-3.
In the second period the Sharks found themselves down early with Meier getting a high sticking penalty.
Thankfully for San Jose the penalty kill unit continued to remain perfect.
Other than that though the first ten minutes of the second period were rather quiet with neither team getting many chances.
At the 13:59 mark Milan Lucic found himself wide open and one timed a pass home from Lindholm past Kahkonen getting his first goal of the season. Trevor Lewis also got an assist on the goal.
Not to long after the goal Blake Colman took a penalty that put the Sharks on the man advantage. However, this time the pk unit for the Flames came through and killed off the chance.
Looking to rile up each other’s teams Jonah Gadjovich and Dennis Gilbert dropped the gloves. It ended up being quite the fight with Gadjovich dropping Gilbert in the fight.
It got both the fans on their feet and seemed to rally the Sharks who had a little more momentum.
The Sharks though were unable to score despite their sustained zone time with Jacob Markstrom playing solid.
The period ended with San Jose on the power play though they only had nine seconds heading into the third period.
The shots at the end of the second favored the Flames at 17-16.
With the score at 2-1 heading into the third the Sharks had kept it close.
The third ended up though being a completely different story as just 16 seconds in Lindholm scored his 10th goal of the season on a feed right across the slot from Jonathan Huberdeau.
Looking to follow that up just 19 seconds later Lindholm struck again this time Rasmus Andersson found him wide open for a one timer.
With the lead suddenly at 4-1 the Sharks looked rattled by the quick offense of the Flames.
Nazem Kadri at around the two minute mark of the third period flipped the puck in on Kahkonen from the neutral zone. Kahkonen naturally went to cover it up but misplayed the puck and bounced it right to Dillon Dube who put the puck in the wide open cage getting his sixth goal of the season.
The score now suddenly at 5-1 head coach David Quinn called a timeout to try to calm the team down.
The timeout helped a little but the damage was already done and the energy had been sapped out of the building.
At the 11:48 mark MacKenzie Weegar took a penalty once again putting the Sharks power play unit on the ice.
Just seconds into the power play Thomas Hertl corralled a rebound out front and backhanded it home which was his 11th goal of the season. Both Logan Couture and Erik Karlsson got assists on the goal.
Despite a couple more penalties back and forth Hertl’s goal ended up being the last goal of the game.
“Especially tonight I don’t think we spend enough time in the O zone we don’t have all four lines rolling the O zone,” Hertl commented after the game.
The shots at the end of the game favored the Sharks at 26-25.
The three stars of the game were: 1st: Elias Lindholm 2nd: Nazem Kadri 3rd: Rasmus Andersson
The Sharks will look to bounce back on Tuesday at home were they will play the Flames again at 7:30 p.m.
