Photo credit to San Jose Sharks Twitter. Matt Nieto gets warmed up before the game against the Detroit Red Wings on Hockey Fights Cancer night at SAP Center
By Titus Wilkinson (@TitusWisme)
SAN JOSE–At SAP Center the Sharks took on the Red Wings in a back-and-forth affair with Detroit coming out victorious by a score of 7-4.
Between the pipes for the Red Wings was Ville Husso and for the Sharks it was James Reimer.
The first big event of the opening period was Joe Veleno taking a board penalty to get the Sharks power play on the ice.
It ended up being a rather uneventful extra man opportunity as San Jose only was able to muster a couple of chances.
Not too long after the penalty kill the Sharks did get on the board with Kevin Labanc ripping home his third goal of the season on a drop pass from Erik Karlsson at the 13:04 mark. Timo Meier also got the assist on the goal as the teal-and-white found the back of the net first.
The response from Detroit did not take long as David Perron fead a beautiful pass across the slot to Filip Hronek for his second goal of the season.
After the goal the Sharks took a penalty for tripping at the 9:55 mark as Luke Kunin went to the box.
Despite the tied score the shots favored the San Jose heavily at 6-2 at the 9:55 mark.
The penalty kill unit looked great when called upon as Detroit couldn’t get much going and got no goals on the opportunity.
The power play being killed off seemed to give some juice to the Sharks as they got a couple chances after.
One of those chances was put home by Matt Nieto getting his third goal of the season as well. It was a solid play with Nieto dekeing past the defender and backhanding one past Husso’s blocker.
The assists on the goal went to Karlsson and Nick Cicek which was Cicek’s first point in the pro’s in just his second game.
In the dying moments of the period Alexander Barabonov would take an interference penalty.
Dylan Larkin on the PP would have a great look right in the slot but was denied by Reimer.
That ended up being really the only good look for Detroit as the Sharks killed the penalty and rode out the rest of the period still up by one.
The shots at the end of the period finished in favor of the Sharks by 8-5.
The second period started off quietly with not a lot of looks either way.
Again a penalty was the first big play of the game as Nick Bonino went to the box for hooking with the Sharks scrambling in their own end.
This power play for Detroit looked more threatening but was still not able to score as the PK remained perfect.
At the 8:33 mark of the second period Larkin fired one off the rush and the puck bounced off of Perron’s skate and past Reimer to tie the game up. Dominik Kubalik also got an assist on Perron’s sixth goal of the season.
Following up Perron Jake Walman stepped into one at the point and wired one past Reimer to give the Red Wings the lead at 3-2. The assists going to Michael Rasmussen and Adam Erne.
That goal pretty much closed at the second with the period ending at the same score. The Sharks still lead in shots by the end of the period at 17-13.
The momentum for the red-and-white continued into the third period with Reimer busy to kick things off.
Those chances lead to goal 4:58 into the period as Joe Veleno wrapped it in past a sprawled Reimer to give Detroit a 4-2 lead. The goal was also assisted by Pius Suter and Jonaten Berggren as Suter one timed a shot in the slot that dropped and perfectly set up the wrap around for Veleno.
With the Red Wings scoring three straight the energy seemed sucked out of SAP Center.
However not giving up yet Karlsson fired one towards the net and produced a rebound for Logan Couture to bat home past Husso making it 4-3. Jacob Megna also tallied an assist on the play.
Karlsson of course was not done yet as at the 8:29 mark of the period he made a nice move to the middle and fired one in off of a Red Wings player tying the game up. Labanc and Tomas Hertl got the assists on Karlsson’s 11th goal of the season.
The scoring frenzy in the third period continued however as Moritz Seider fired one past Reimer making it a 5-4 game. It’s a goal Reimer would want back with Perron and Ben Chairot getting the assists.
Labanc nearly responded right after but his shot rang off the post past Husso.
The true dagger in the coffin though happened when Andrew Copp flipped it out to a streaking Suter breaking into the Sharks zone. With the puck a little ahead of him Riemer tried to dive out to play the puck but Suter beat him to it putting the puck into a wide open cage.
With the score 6-4 and not much time left the Sharks pulled Riemer but Kubalik got his eighth of the season on the open net to put it away. Larkin got the lone assist on the goal.
“I thought we had a really good first period I thought they flipped the switch on us in the second. Going down 3-2 and they get on early in the third I thought we battled back after that,” head coach David Quinn said after the game.
The Sharks next game will also be at the Shark tank this time against the New York Rangers on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
