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SAN JOSE — It might have been the most inconsistent game the Sharks had played in its opening round playoff series against the Anaheim Ducks. Gone was the discipline, some of their attention to detail, most of their odd-man rushes.
The one constant was the play of goalie Martin Jones, who almost single-handedly helped the Sharks finish off the Ducks with a four-game sweep.
Jones made 27 saves before he allowed a goal to Ducks forward Andrew Cogliano at the 7:53 mark of the third period. Just 76 seconds later, though, Tomas Hertl redirected a Marc-Edouard Vlasic shot from the point past Ducks goalie John Gibson for the winning goal, as the Sharks beat the Ducks 2-1 on Wednesday at SAP Center to complete the second sweep in franchise history.
“I didn’t see it for a second,” Hertl said, adding that he saw Logan Couture “celebrate first, and for sure it’s a great feeling. I’m really happy for that.”
Marcus Sorensen also scored for San Jose and Jones finished with 30 saves, as the Sharks advanced to face the expansion Vegas Golden Knights in the second round of the playoffs, with the start of that series potentially not for another week. Vegas swept the Los Angeles Kings in its first round series.
A potentially critical moment came 27 seconds into the third period as the Sharks were killing a penalty to Eric Fehr, when Rickard Rakell scored a would-be power play goal to tie the game.
The Sharks challenged the play, with the help of their video review coach, Dan Darrow, believing the play was offside. Sure enough, after the review, it was determined that both Rakell and Corey Perry were offside before Ryan Getzlaf carried the puck into the Sharks’ zone.
“I was right there with Getzlaf and I knew that he didn’t carry the puck all the way in the zone,” Couture said. “I saw that the puck was still on the blue line when he made the play, so I figured it was probably offside. Obviously a great call by our video coach Danny to challenge that one.”
Fehr’s penalty was one of three the Sharks took in the first two-plus periods. But the Sharks killed all three, continuing a theme all series long.
“When you put a team against a wall like that, you know they’re going to come with a push and they gave us everything they had,” Jones said. “It was tough, but the guys did a huge job. They had a couple huge penalty kills, some huge blocked shots. It was a gutsy win.”
Jones made six saves on the Sharks’ three penalty kills, including a highlight-reel stop on Corey Perry late in the second period.
“Goaltending wins this time of year, and (Jones) was fantastic,” Couture said. “He made a lot of Grade A saves on the penalty kill. He was our best penalty killer.”
For the first three games of the series, the Sharks had done just about everything they had set out to do in all three phases — offense, defense and special teams.
One of the first priorities was to make sure that they maintained their composure and not get sucked into a chippy series with the Ducks. As one of the least penalized teams in the NHL during the regular season, the Sharks stayed true to their identity, going down a man just eight times in the first three games — tied with Boston for the fewest in the playoffs.
Offensively, the Sharks had received contributions from all four lines.
Joe Pavelski and Couture leading all skaters with five points each. Evander Kane had four and four other players had three points each. Sorensen’s first period goal was his third of the series, tying him with Kane for the team lead. Fellow fourth liners Fehr and Melker Karlsson combined for three points in limited minutes.
Of course, Jones has been near-unbeatable.
When the Sharks swept the Vancouver Canucks in four straight in the first round of the 2013 playoffs, then-starting goalie Antti Niemi was impressive with just eight goals allowed. What Jones had done through three games was almost historic, with just three goals allowed in three games, stopping 98 of 101 shots for a .970 save percentage.
According to NHL Public Relations, only five goalies since 1967-68 have won all four games of a playoff series and kept their goals against average to 0.70 or less. Vegas’ Marc-Andre Fleury joined that list with his 0.65 goals against average against the Los Angeles Kings in the Golden Knights’ four-game sweep.
Wednesday, Jones made 10 saves in the first period and 14 more in the second as the Sharks were getting dominated territorially, going without a shot on goal for almost 12 minutes in one stretch.
He absolutely robbed Perry on a rebound try as the Sharks were killing Fehr’s hooking penalty in the final minute of the second.
After Jones stopped a shot from the point by Rakell, the rebound came to Perry, who tried to backhand in for what would have been his first goal of the series. Instead, Jones stuck his right leg out and blocked the shot to preserve the Sharks’ one goal lead.“Just a rebound,” Jones said. “He was pretty tight to the net, he didn’t have any room. so I just tried to take away the bottom part of the net.”
Defensively, the Sharks had worked all series to stay above the puck, with forwards backchecking to get ahead of the Ducks rush, helping Jones do his job. The Sharks shut out Anaheim 3-0 in Game 1, absorbed its attempt to counter with more physicality in Game 2 with a 3-2 win, then took advantage of some careless Ducks miscues in Game 3 with an 8-1 romp.
“You never expect a sweep. You always want a sweep, you always want to win every game you play in,” Couture said. “They’re a very good team over there. Obviously they didn’t have their best in a few games. I thought they played pretty well tonight.”
