By Titus Wilkinson (@TitusWisme)
Credit to San Jose Sharks Twitter. The San Jose Sharks celebrate their overtime win against the Maple Leafs on Thursday night.
SAN JOSE– The San Jose Sharks took on the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night the Sharks picked up an overtime win 4-3 at the SAP Center on Thursday night.
The game couldn’t have started off better for the Sharks as Logan Couture on a breakdown in puck management by the Maple Leafs got a goal just 27 seconds in. The assists went to Matt Nieto and Alexander Barabonov as the Sharks as they’ve done many times this season got on the board first.
Feeling the momentum that first line continued to get chances as Nieto not too long after the goal streaked in and shot one wide.
Erik Kallgren the starting goalie for the Leafs had to be on his toes early in the game as the chances piled on.
Despite the early momentum the Leafs found a way to respond as David Kampf scored off a nice pass by Alexander Kerfoot and helped as well by Mitch Marner. It came at the 14:46 mark of the first and seemed to breathe new life into the Leafs.
Helping to further the Leafs continued pressure the Sharks took a too many men penalty and put a dangerous power play on the ice. The penalty kill would come through for the Sharks though the Leafs had plenty of good looks.
By the end of the first a shot count that originally favored the Sharks now favored the Leafs at 9-5.
The second period for the Sharks got off to a rocky start as Radim Simek got a penalty for tripping. The penalty kill that has been extremely good though for the Sharks continued to be as they killed it off.
Following that up would be the Maple Leafs though as they would take two penalties simultaneously to give the Sharks a five on three. With both T.J. Brodie and Pierre Engvall sitting in the box blood was in the water for the power play unit.
It would not take long for the power play unit to capitalize as Erik Karlsson gave it to Barabonov on a one touch who then feed it to Couture for the goal. Couture’s second goal came with still some time left on the five on three and so the Sharks remained on the power play.
The power play then struck again for the Sharks and at first it appeared to be Couture’s giving him the hat trick. However after further inspection the goal went to Timo Meier though by that time it was too late as many hats had already been thrown.
Meier commented on the delayed correction after the game, “Yea I mean sorry for all the people that threw the hats but you know you’d love to see Logan get a hat trick. But anyways were happy to win the game.”
With a 3-1 lead it seemed like everything was clicking in the second period for team teal. The Leafs actually ended up taking another penalty this time for delay of game but it was killed off this time by penalty kill.
In the dying moments of the second period though the Sharks gave up a four on two and the Leafs converted on the defensive blemish. This time Marner got the goal from Morgan Rielly and Alexander Kerfoot making it a 3-2 game off tic tac toe style play.
With the third period starting and the Sharks having a sour taste in their mouths they did not get off to a great start. As the penalty kill would be busy with a couple quick penalties.
On one of these penalties the power play for the Maple Leafs came through as Auston Matthews one timed an absolute bomb from the top of the slot. The assists going to Rielly and John Tavares on the goal that tied the game at three.
For the rest of the period the teams fought back and forth exchanging chances. The Maple Leafs though ended up with the more threatening looks as Kaapo Kahkonen had to be sharp making 22 saves.
The teams fought to a draw and so overtime would have to be played in front of the home crowd for the Sharks. Those same fans though had something to cheer about pretty quickly into the match.
Off a beautiful defensive play by Timo Meier on a pass he poked it away and spotted Erik Karlsson skating out of the zone. On a perfect pass he fead Karlsson and Erik did the rest as he went backhand forehand top shelf to end the game in OT at 4-3.
“It was nice the way it developed I think I just had to get going and trust Timo that he would get the puck there. I made up my mind fairly early and stuck to it and it went in,” Karlsson said postgame.
For the home crowd at SAP Center it was an exhilarating win and a great way to end the game.
The San Jose Sharks next game will be against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday at SAP Center for a 1:30pm faceoff.
