Photo credit: @SanJoseSharks
By Mary Walsh
The San Jose Sharks finished a five game road trip 1-2-2, capping it off with a 4-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets at Bell MTS Place on Sunday.
Logan Couture scored a power play goal, and Sharks goaltender Martin Jones made 26 saves in the loss to Winnipeg.
Matt Hendricks and Marko Dano scored for the Jets and Mathieu Perrault scored twice. Andrew Copp and Tyler Meyers earned two assists each in the game and Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck made 31 saves in a losing effort.
Despite the disappointing outcome, Sharks head coach Pete DeBoer said:
What did we get, four out of 10 points? Could have easily had six which would have made it good. We didn’t. You know, we’re in every game. The only game I thought was really poor was the Dallas game, throw that one out. The rest of the trip, the third period in Ottawa I didn’t like but I liked our first two. Tonight I thought we hung in there in a tough situation and gave ourselves a chance anyway. So, overall we’re okay. We’re not perfect, we’re not exactly where we want to be but could be worse.
Brenden Dillon and Matt Hendricks started Sunday’s game off with a fight at 2:22 of the first. At 12:42 of the first period, Matt Hendricks scored the only goal of the period. After Andrew Copp blocked a pass, Armia won the race to the puck and moved it up ice where Copp and Matt Hendricks were flying through the neutral zone. Hendricks ended up with the puck and broke away to beat Martin Jones for the lead.
The Jets extended their lead to 2-0 with a goal just after a power play expired 11:03 into the second. Copp forced his way past Brenden Dillon along the boards, then danced away from Tomas Hertl before getting the puck back to Jacob Trouba up at the blue line. Trouba took the shot and Marko Dano redirected it under Jones.
Timo Meier drew a tripping penalty to Tyler Meyers a few minutes later. Halfway through that penalty, Dustin Byfuglien was called for hooking to give the Sharks a 5-on-3. The Sharks didn’t do much more than wear the Jets down with the extra penalty, but after the first penalty expired, Logan Couture found an opening to get a hard shot through. It went off the pipe and in. Assists went to Joe Pavelksi and Brent Burns.
Chris Tierney was set to the box after being pushed into the Winnipeg goaltender, putting the Jets on the pwer play in the final minutes of the second period. Wheeler took a shot from above the circle that Mathieu Perrault was able to tap by Jones. It only took the Jets 25 seconds to score with their formidable power play. They had six power play goals in five games before Sunday, and it was not a wonder. They worked very quickly and didn’t spend much time standing around. Assists went to Blake Wheeler and Myers.
DeBoer singled that goal out in his post-game comments: “Really, the third goal was really the killer. I don’t understand and I’m still looking for an explanation on how that’s a penalty but that’s what you deal with.”
The Jets had yet another power play start in the first two minutes of the third period, when Melker Karlsson was called for hooking. The Sharks killed that off and Joel Ward added a short-handed breakaway for emphasis. Despite that hopeful start to the period, the Sharks could not score and gave up an empty net goal to Perrault at 16:48.
San Jose’s power play went scored once in three chances, and they killed three of four penalties. Brent Burns got credit for eight shots on goal, Logan Couture took five and Timo Meier took four.
The Sharks next play after a five day break in San Jose against the Arizona Coyotes at 7:00 pm PT.
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