Friday night
’s home contest at the HP Pavilion with the San Jose Sharks and
the Saint Louis Blues started off as a hockey game and ended up as
a boxing match.
SAN JOSE –– Friday night’s home contest at the HP Pavilion with the San Jose Sharks and the Saint Louis Blues started off as a hockey game and ended up as a boxing match.
In the Sharks 4-1 loss, the teams combined for a total of 40 minutes in penalties with the Sharks guilty of 23. The first three goals in the game came on power plays.
Two of the Sharks 10 most costliest penalties came at the start of the second period when veterans Owen Nolan and Scott Thornton used rookie defender Barret Jackman, who early served a major penalty for fighting, as a punching bag.
Nolan said there was not any history between him and Jackman.
“Sometimes in the heat of the battle, you lose your cool or you don’t make the right decisions,” Nolan said. “I didn’t realized Thorty had a penalty as well, which made it 5-on-3.”
“It bit us in the (butt),” Nolan added. “You try to play with emotion, but that one backfired.”
Thorton said it was a guessing game to know when to fight and when not to.
“I shouldn’t have punched him first,” Thorton said. “I should have let him him me. But you never know.”
Ten seconds later, the Blues took advantage of the five-on-three power play with a goal by Keith Tkachuk from deep in the left faceoff circle at the 18:07 mark in the second quarter.
Tkachuk put in his second goal in the third quarter. The Blues added an empty-netter with under a minute remaining.
The Sharks, got off to a quick start in the game as Vincent Damphousse scored on an assist by Jim Fahley. But that lead lasted only 43 seconds when Pavol Demitra knocked in his 12th goal of the year.
The Sharks, midway through the season, are sitting on the bottom of the Pacific Division with a 15-17-5-3 record.
“I’ve seen too often that a little bit of adversity throws us off the track,” said coach Ron Wilson, who took over this year as coach. “You stay up all night trying to figure out why a little bump in the road causes such damage.”
The Sharks, who are winless in their last four games, finish the eight-game home streak Saturday against one the NHL’s hottest teams, Vancouver, before heading to Los Angeles on Monday.
