Ducks Fall to Sharks 4-1 in Season Opener
By Omar Zaman
The Ducks started the game well after they had a few power play chances but were then dominated for rest of the game as the Sharks thoroughly outplayed the Ducks for most of the game. The Ducks were down 3-0 after the first period and 4-0 after the second, and finally got on the scoreboard with a Ryan Whitney power play goal in the third.
The Sharks came out firing after a disappointing defeat in Colorado on Thursday. The team took 12 shots in the first period and added another 17 in the second, while the Ducks were able to manage a measly seven and two shots in the first and second periods, respectively. The Sharks dominated in every aspect of the game, scoring two even strength goals, a power play goal, and a short-handed goal. The Ducks were unable to get much going on their many power play attempts as the Sharks effectively killed all but one of them.
The Ducks’ lone goal came from the point on a power play as Ryan Getzlaf slid the puck across the blue line to Whitney. Whitney one-timed the puck and it seemed to deflect off a Sharks defencemen before going high on Evgeny Nabokov to break the goalie’s shutout.
Other than that, there was not much to like about the game. Teemu Selanne came out flying but the second line faded as the game went on. The Ducks’ top line of Bobby Ryan, Getzlaf, and Corey Perry was a combined minus-8 and Scott Niedermayer and Whitney were each minus-2.
Luca Sbisa had a pretty good game and showed off his skating ability on a few different occasions. In fact, Sbisa was probably the best Ducks player on the ice. He played most of the game on the third pairing along with Sheldon Brookbank, who surprisingly got the start over Nick Boynton. Other Ducks scratches were Andrew Ebbett and Petteri Nokelainen, and Coach Randy Carlyle will probably change that for the next game as he searches for more offense.
From Karen Francis at NHL.com:
It won’t salve the wounds of last spring, but the San Jose Sharks got a measure of revenge for last spring’s playoff upset by spoiling the Anaheim Ducks‘ opener. San Jose scored three times in the opening period and coasted to a 4-1 victory over the Ducks on Saturday night before a disappointed sellout crowd at Honda Center.
The Sharks won the Presidents’ Trophy last season but lost to Anaheim in the opening round of the playoffs, then dropped their season-opener in Colorado on Thursday. But they took all the excitement out of the crowd this time with a three-goal blitz in the first period, then controlled the middle period while looking like the team that won the NHL regular-season championship in ’08-09.
Rookie Benn Ferreiro opened the scoring at 7:30 with his first NHL goal, swatting home a rebound that Jonas Hiller left lying around the crease. Patrick Marleaumade it 2-0 with a shorthanded goal on a breakaway backhander at 16:46, and Joe Thornton added the third goal at 18:23.
The Sharks spent most of the second period in Anaheim’s zone and made it 4-0 at 4:32 on Devin Setoguchi’spower-play goal. Only some superb play by Hiller kept the game from becoming a rout — San Jose outshot Anaheim 17-2 in the middle 20 minutes.
Newcomer Dany Heatley assisted on the goals by Thornton and Setoguchi for his first two points as a Shark. San Jose acquired the two-time 50-goal scorer from Ottawa last month.
Evgeni Nabokov, who wasn’t sharp in the 5-2 loss at Colorado on Thursday, made 24 saves and lost his shutout midway through the third period on Ryan Whitney’s power-play goal.