I was reading Sharks' blog Fear the Fin this morning in its recap of the Sharks' 6-3 win in Edmonton Tuesday, and it analyzed amidst the flurry of power and play and even strength success in the six-goal first period the team's anticipated more aggressive penalty kill. No sugarcoating necessary, but San Jose's short-handed play has simply sucked recently. Multiple Stanley Cup winner (as a player and head coach) and Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman Larry Robinson was added to the staff with the intention he'd clean up the team's PK woes (29th of 30 in percentage of penalties killed in 2011-12; 25th the year before after ranking fifth in 2009-10). Two games into the new season -and in Robinson's defense he had an extremely small window of training camp to work with his new players- there is still work to be done given the small sample size.
The Sharks were short-handed eight times in Calgary and Edmonton. They yielded a rather high three goals in those eight penalty kill situations. That's the bad news. The good news is the Flames and Oilers combined for just one goal five-on-five. But the Flames don't have some of the playmakers and snipers Western Conference foes like Vancouver (Sedin twins); St. Louis (Alex Pietrangelo, T.J. Oshie, David Backes); Los Angeles (Anze Kopitar, Jeff Carter, Justin Williams) and Anaheim (Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, Teemu Selanne) will throw out at the Sharks on their respective power plays. Edmonton, unlike Calgary, boasts some of the best young forwards in the NHL and seems far more scary on the PP than the Flames can muster. But after San Jose, as Fear the Fin pointed out, looked shaky during its first opportunity to kill a penalty in allowing a first-period goal, the Sharks were more efficient as the game wore on. The Oilers did get score on a 5-on-3 opportunity in the second to get within 6-2, and the home crowd had hope as Edmonton had another 1 1/2 minutes or so of man-advantage time left to even draw closer with another period remaining. But San Jose survived the rest of that time and successfully killed two penalties in the third period -Antti Niemi had another good night in goal- without giving the Oilers many legitimate scoring chances on either power play.
We'll see how much progress Robinson makes with the penalty kill as the tests get even tougher.
The Sharks were short-handed eight times in Calgary and Edmonton. They yielded a rather high three goals in those eight penalty kill situations. That's the bad news. The good news is the Flames and Oilers combined for just one goal five-on-five. But the Flames don't have some of the playmakers and snipers Western Conference foes like Vancouver (Sedin twins); St. Louis (Alex Pietrangelo, T.J. Oshie, David Backes); Los Angeles (Anze Kopitar, Jeff Carter, Justin Williams) and Anaheim (Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, Teemu Selanne) will throw out at the Sharks on their respective power plays. Edmonton, unlike Calgary, boasts some of the best young forwards in the NHL and seems far more scary on the PP than the Flames can muster. But after San Jose, as Fear the Fin pointed out, looked shaky during its first opportunity to kill a penalty in allowing a first-period goal, the Sharks were more efficient as the game wore on. The Oilers did get score on a 5-on-3 opportunity in the second to get within 6-2, and the home crowd had hope as Edmonton had another 1 1/2 minutes or so of man-advantage time left to even draw closer with another period remaining. But San Jose survived the rest of that time and successfully killed two penalties in the third period -Antti Niemi had another good night in goal- without giving the Oilers many legitimate scoring chances on either power play.
We'll see how much progress Robinson makes with the penalty kill as the tests get even tougher.
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