Opening statement: Sharks hold off bruising Blues for Game 1 win
SAN JOSE — Remember the hits, animosity and general bad blood the Sharks had in their first round series in these playoffs?
Well, it’s all back, and it seems to suit the Sharks just fine.
Kevin Labanc snapped a six-game goal drought and Timo Meier scored his fourth and fifth of the playoffs in the second period to help the Sharks earn a 6-3 win over the St. Louis Blues on Saturday in Game 1 of the Western Conference Final at SAP Center. Game 2 is Monday in San Jose at 6 p.m.
That little kick by @Str8ToTheBanc #PlayoffMode pic.twitter.com/Sub5LEv997
— x – San Jose Sharks (@SanJoseSharks) May 12, 2019
Meier also added a pretty assist on the first of Logan Couture’s two goals, and Martin Jones finished with 28 saves as the Sharks took the first game of a playoff series for the third straight round. They also beat the Vegas Golden Knights in a bruising first round and the Colorado Avalanche — in a less hostile second round — by identical 5-2 scores.
“They’re a big team. They like to play physical, and that’s how it’s going to be,” said Gus Nyquist, who had two assists for the third time in six games. “We’ve been through it. Probably not against Colorado as much, but Vegas was a pretty physical series that we handled well. Just got to keep going.”
The Sharks led 2-1 after the first period before Labanc and Blues center Ryan O’Reilly traded goals 1:17 part in the second. O’Reilly’s goal, at the 8:58 mark of the second, cut the Sharks lead to 3-2.
Then Meier took over.
He took a pass from Couture inside the St. Louis blue line, slipped the puck under the stick of a flat-footed Jay Bouwmeester, skated around him, then went forehand-to-backhand in close on Jordan Binnington, tapping the puck past his left pad for a 4-2 Sharks lead at the 10:24 mark.
“That goal wouldn’t happen if that play wasn’t made by Logan,” Meier said. “I had some speed, the defenseman was flat-footed, so I just got it past him and I knew coming in on the goalie, I knew I had to make a move and cut back. It worked out.”
— Dieter Kurtenbach (@dkurtenbach) May 12, 2019
Then with 2:26 left in the second, Meier, slightly behind the goal line to the left of the St. Louis net, picked up the loose puck after a shot from Marc-Edouard Vlasic and put it off the stick of Blues defenseman Vince Dunn and put it past Binnington.
Labanc’s goal was his first, and the first for his line with Marcus Sorensen and Joe Thornton, since Game 1 against the Avalanche on April 26. That goal was also a game-winner.
It also came after a neutral zone turnover by the Blues, one of three Sharks goals that came shortly after St. Louis giveaways.
“We wanted to create as many turnovers as we could in all three zones and I think we did a good job of that,” Labanc said. “At the same time, we weren’t giving up as many turnovers and we were doing our job, managing the puck well, taking away their speed and not giving them much in our own end.”
The Sharks knew this would be a much physical series than the one they just completed against the Avalanche, and the tone was set early.
Officially, the two teams combined for 35 hits in the first 20 minutes, with the Blues being credited with 22. But it was the Sharks who had a 2-1 lead after the first period.
“We expected that. They’re a big, physical team and that’s the style we like to play, too,” Sharks defenseman Brenden Dillon said. “We expected kind of a mirror image. It just kind of came down to who was able to execute and play their system the best.”
Couture opened the scoring at the 3:31 mark of the first, as he took a pass from Gus Nyquist on a 2-on-1 and scored on a nearly open net for his league-leading 10th of the playoffs. The play was set up by Meier, who barreled over Alex Pietrangelo to free the puck before he tapped it ahead to Nyquist for the odd man rush.
The Blues got that goal back at the 9:13 mark, as Jaden Schwartz’s shot from the faceoff circle to the right of the Sharks net was tipped by Joel Edmundson past Jones. Just second before, Schwartz made contact with Couture, who had a partial breakaway before he went hard into the end boards feet first.
No penalty was called on that play, but the Blues were called for interference and slashing in a span of 51 seconds to set up a Sharks 5-on-3.
The Sharks capitalized, as Burns found Pavelski near the side of the Blues net. Pavelski’s first two tries were stopped by goalie Jordan Binnington, but he batted the third try into the net for his fourth goal of the playoffs at the 11:24 mark.
The Sharks were just 2-for-20 with the man advantage against the Avalanche and the Blues were one of the least penalized teams in the second round of the playoffs. But the Sharks had three power play tries in the first 25 minutes of Saturday’s game.
“We’re going to play whistle-to-whistle the whole series, and if they want to take penalties like that, or penalties like at the end of the game, then we’ll let the refs take care of that,” Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said. “They told us they will and we’re expecting they will.”