Thirty-Three More, Just Like That

The Sharks head into the All-Star break on a good note after last night's convincing 4-1 victory over the St. Louis Blues. They didn't play a perfect game, but it was certainly one of their best performances of the season--they did what they needed to do to beat a tired and less-talented (though much-improved) team.

Last night's contest had one detail in common with Tuesday night's game against Chicago--in both, San Jose failed to register a shot on goal until more than half of the first period had gone by. However, unlike the Blackhawks game, in which the Sharks came onto the ice looking dispirited and tentative, Team Teal worked hard, with guts and heart, right from the drop of the puck last night. So did the Blues, for that matter. Neither team managed many shots on goal in the first period last night, because both San Jose and St. Louis were playing solid, physical, defensive hockey. The effort was certainly there.

Jonathan Cheechoo's performance last night was extremely heartening--he was one of the best Sharks over the course of what was, on balance, a mediocre homestand. One of the few bright spots from the rout at the hands of the Wings was Cheechoo's tricky goal, which totally fooled Dominik Hasek. And last night he was by far the best player on the ice, working his way into the tough real estate in front of the goal and scoring two from in close. Perhaps his early struggles really can be attributed to the off-season surgery he had to deal with. I like what I see from him lately, and I'm hopeful he's about to embark upon a huge second half.

Another good sign from the Sharks last night was a bit of killer instinct. As I mentioned in my post about the Detroit game, much success in ice hockey comes from making the other guy pay for his mistakes. The Sharks made the Blues pay for their mistakes last night. The first goal occurred when St. Louis somehow lost track of Joe Thornton and let him get in behind the defense--about as big a mistake as you can make against San Jose. Thornton made another of his how-does-he-make-it-look-so-easy passes to Milan Michalek, who had some trouble with the puck initially but hung with the play and eventually tapped it past Manny Legace.

Then, in the third period, with the Blues on the power play after having scored to make it 3-1 and showing some signs of life, Keith Tkachuk did something very Keith-Tkachuk-like, initiating a pointless scrap with Torrey Mitchell and getting himself sent off for roughing, not only negating the man advantage but taking one of St. Louis's best goal scorers (himself) off the ice. When Patrick Rissmiller came out of the box to end the four-on-four and put San Jose on the power play, Cheech scored his second of the night to make it 4-1 and kill St. Louis's budding rally.

All in all, it was the kind of effort from the Sharks that I had expected to see much more of this season. Perhaps we'll see many more performances like this in the second half.