Joe Thornton led San Jose Sharks to victory against Columbus Blue Jackets 2-1 – NHL Update
Joe Thornton led San Jose Sharks from the front on his 500th game for the team to defeat the lowly Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-1, on Thursday, January 5, 2012 at HP Pavilion, San Jose, California.
Thornton scored the decisive goal of the game in the second period to give the Sharks their third straight victory.
Despite Curtis Sanford’s 37 saves, the Blue Jackets could not extract something fruitful out of the game. They did start the game well and took an early lead, but the Sharks responded viciously to dominate their opponents, and eventually got the victory.
Sanford also stopped all the shots in the goalless third period to keep his team's chances alive in the game, but his Sharks’ counterpart, Thomas Greiss, also did the same, keeping the competition even.
Thornton appreciated his teams especially the goalie, Greiss, for the victory and urged the players to keep the momentum going.
"I think the guys realised, hey, we've got to tighten up a little bit, and I think we did that," Thornton said. "Greiss did a good job of just swallowing pucks up and (sending) pucks away from him. But after that first one we just clamped down and played
well defensively."
Greiss made a total of 23 saves to support the offence led by Thornton who is also the captain of the team.
Columbus was indeed outclassed by the Sharks, but they too were responsible for their slump. They gave away penalties, of which the Sharks took full use.
Columbus coach Scott Arniel accepted that his team could do better if it had not given away the penalties. He regretted that despite getting an early lead, the Blue Jackets went on to lose the game.
"We played a real solid first 10 minutes and we got the lead," he said. "Then we got hit by six minutes of penalties. It really gave them life and jump-started them. They had a lot of opportunities there on the power play."
At the start of the game, Columbus fired a few shots towards the goal, but Greiss stood rock solid. However, assists by Mark Letestu and Antoine Vermette set up Vaclav Prospal, who eventually beat Greiss at 2:13.
After more than 10 minutes, the Sharks gave the reply. At 13:03, Jason Demers and Michal Handzus assisted Ryane Clowe who scored his eight goal of the season to level the scores.
In the second period, Demers had his second assist, which was supported by Patrick Marleau to put Thornton in-charge to score the final goal of the game.
The Blue Jackets were coming after a four-day rest, which did not help him. On the other hand, the Sharks played their last game a day before this victory, and successfully continued their winning run.
Tags: