Sharks nip Stars to stay in control of NHL West

The San Jose Sharks have—for the time being at least—opened a little breathing room in the race for supremacy in the NHL Western Conference.  A few days ago they held a tenuous one point lead over the Detroit Red Wings but have now pushed their advantage to five points following a victory against the Dallas Stars on Monday night.  San Jose prevailed 1-0 in a defensive struggle that featured exceptional performances from the goaltenders at both ends of the rink.

Dallas is caught in the brutal logjam near the middle of the pack in the NHL West, but they’ve played very well at home this season.  The Stars headed into Monday’s game on a 13-3-1 run in their last 17 home games.  San Jose, however, has been the best road team in the NHL this season and entered the contest with an impressive 14-6-6 record away from the HP Pavilion.  As the old saying goes ‘something had to give.’

What didn’t give was the goaltending—the Sharks Evgeni Nabokov stopped 29 shots for his 45^th career shutout in the victorious cause.  The tough luck loser on the other end of the ice, the Stars’ Marty Turco played almost as well as he stopped 23 San Jose shots and allowed only one goal.  Of course with Nabokov simply impenetrable between the pipes for the Sharks, that single goal was all that was needed.

After two close checking, scoreless periods, San Jose’s Devin Setoguchi beat Turco for his 25^th goal of the season assisted by Ryane Clowe and Christian Ehrhoff.  Setoguchi described the winning tally, a sharp, low shot from just inside the faceoff circle:

"I saw [Sydor], he kind of stopped at the blue line. I had to make a quick move, and once I did I could get by him. He could see one of my teammates coming, and that made him indecisive on the blue line."

Turco said after the game it was the sort of shot he should have been able to stop:

"Hindsight is always a beautiful thing and I wish I could have had that one back. You'd like to be in good position and take away that spot. If I was one inch over to the right and in a perfect square position, I would have had a lot better chance of saving it."

Not surprisingly, Sharks’ coach Todd McLellan was extremely pleased with his goaltenders’ performance and had the following comments about Nabakov:

"Fabulous. He was the first, second and third star in my opinion. He allowed us to escape with the point. I'm happy for Nabby. On the last road trip, a lot of pucks went by him and it wasn't his fault. This was really good for him as an individual and us as a team.”

San Jose now has a big game at second place Detroit on Wednesday night, followed by games Thursday at Ottawa and Saturday in Montreal.   Tonight’s victory may have diminished some of the urgency surrounding the Red Wings games in terms of the standings, but it’s obviously going to be an important ‘statement’ game for both teams.