Colorado Avalanche Recaps

Sharks at Avalanche, Game 21 Recap: Sharks Swim Out Of Denver With 4-1 Win

By Derek B Nov 20, 2011, 8:36pm MST

[NOTE: Due to me being an idiot and forgetting to set my DVR before I left for my Men's League game, I as only able to watch from the second period on. If anyone would like to add their thoughts on the first period, please do so in the comments section below. ]

As the second period got underway you could just tell that the San Jose was going to want to build on their strong play to end the first period. That's exactly what they did.

The Sharks were the ones winning all the battles along the boards, they were hustling to loose pucks faster than the Avs, and it cost them on the second goal against.

The Sharks were dominating play so much during the first half of the 2nd period, that it took nearly 9 minutes of play before the Avs were able to manage their first shot on net. The Avs had a chance to build some momentum shortly after the goal, Patrick Marleau's second of the game, but failed to capitalize on the power play with Dan Boyle off for interference.

After the Avalanche were able to get some sustained pressure on the Sharks, but it was the Sharks who were the ones who scored their third unanswered goal of the night. Joe Thornton, probably one of the best pure passers in the NHL, set up behind the net and was able to find Joe Pavelski who sent a high shot off Giguere's shoulder and into the net.

Coming into the third period, Colorado was going to need to step up their physical game in order to cut down on any time and space the Sharks. And that's exactly what they did. However, their physical play only created a limited amount of chances. I feel there definitely could've been more opportunities created, but they just seemed to hesitate when the puck was on their sticks. There were passing windows and shooting that were open, but the players waited too long and those shots and passes just ended up in the shin pads of the defenders.

Then Erik Johnson took an interference call with a big hit Jamie McGinn with two and a half minutes to play, severely limiting the Avs chances of making any kind of serious comeback. To add insult to injury, Patrick Marleau scored into an empty net to get his hat trick.

MHH Avalanche 3 Stars of the Night

1 Matt Duchene, Avs only goal of the night
2 Jean Sebastien Giguere, Kept the Avs in the game again, but received no help offensively
3 Shane O'Brien played in his 400th game in the NHL, the only Avs defenseman with that many games logged in the NHL.

Lines

1 Porter-Stastny-Yip
2 Landeksog-Duchene-Hejduk
3 Winnik-O'Reilly-Jones
4 Galiardi-McClement-Kobasew

1 O'Byrne-Johnson
2 O'Brien-Quincey
3 Wilson-Hejda

Quick Hits

1 Not really sure what was going on with the line combinations tonight. Definitely a head scratcher, Porter-Stastny-Yip??? Really Joe Sacco??
2 Key to this game to me was that the Sharks seemed to win all of the little battles to the pucks and along the boards in the second period.
3 Congratulations to Shane O'Brien for playing in his 400th career NHL game.

NHL.com Recap & Highlights

NHL.com recap

Game Summary

Event Summary

Next Up

The Vancouver Canucks head into Denver on Wednesday night in an ever important Northwest Division game. It is extremely important to get these divisional points as early as possible.