Sharks keep pace in west, beat Kings

With the red hot Detroit Red Wings breathing down their necks for the NHL Western Conference lead, the San Jose Sharks took care of business on Thursday night as they beat the Los Angeles Kings 4-2 at the HP Pavilion.  The victory allowed the Sharks to extend their precarious Conference lead to three points over their hard charging rivals from ‘The Motor City’.

The Sharks never trailed in the contest and got things started quickly as Lukas Kaspar scored just :34 seconds into the game assisted by Devin Setoguchi and Joe Thornton.  Michal Handzus would tie the score less than four minutes later on a goal set up by Brad Richardson and Wayne Simmonds.  San Jose would take the lead into the intermission, however, as Patrick Marleau’s goal from Rob Blake and Marc-Edouard Vlasic made the score 2-1 after the first period.

Los Angeles would tie the game early in the second on Alexander Frolov’s power play goal assisted by Patrick O'Sullivan and Dustin Brown.  It would be all San Jose from then on out with Marc-Edouard Vlasic scoring the game winner on the power play at the 10:51 mark assisted by Rob Blake and Jose Thornton.  Milan Michalek would cap the scoring less than three minutes later set up by Joe Pavelski, Claude Lemieux to produce the final 4-2 verdict.

After the game, Kings’ coach Terry Murray praised San Jose and suggested that they’d be a tough matchup for any team in the playoffs:

"The Sharks have such great overall depth. It has everything to do with depth, and they are a great hockey team. They are set the right way to walk through everything in the playoffs. To me, they look that good. There are a tough team for any team to face."

San Jose will host the Atlanta Thrashers on Saturday before a pair of tough road games early next week, in Dallas on Monday night and a big contest against the 2^nd place Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday.  Los Angeles will host the Phoenix Coyotes on Saturday before heading out on the road to play Minnesota on Tuesday and Philadelphia on Wednesday.