Patrick Marleau Takes San Jose to 5th Consecutive Victory over Pittsburgh Penguins
San Jose rose to 3rd place Wednesday night over the Phoenix Coyotes after winning their over time match with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Sharks might have been shocked to realize that they would be going against Detroit and
Pittsburgh at their respective home grounds, both being top franchises in the league right now and facing them without a break on two consecutive days. But oh did they disappoint, they defeated the Red Wings in a similar last minute goal as they did with the
Penguins.
Patrick Marleau scored two of the most important goals for his team, one of them being the game winning shot with four seconds left in OT, a match that was certainly headed to a shootout which could have meant defeat for the Sharks. It was Patrick’s
second attempt at a game winner, the first failing with a minute left to go, making the crowd at the CONSOL Energy Centre in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania go wild when http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/players/profile?playerId=2346 blocked it, but an instant silence shot through the arena of 18,253 fans as the second went through.
"Two guys were on him (http://www.nhl.com/ice/player.htm?id=8474053) and he's just mucking around there and the puck squirted out to me," an extremely happy Marleau said. "I was just able to get it over his pad."
Tied at the End
Tyler Kennedy showed high hopes to the audience when scoring the opening and close goal of regulation time. Pittsburgh took an early lead when Kennedy fired at Antti Niemi 5:48 in the first period. Niemi made a normal 24 saves, while Fleury tackled
over 38 attempts blocking 35 of them. Logan Couture scored the tying goal within three minutes of the second period, during a power play when Craig Adams was sent to the benches. Both teams had equally chances at a tie-breaker, but weren’t able to close in.
"I'm focusing on the little things, trying to stick with that," said Kennedy, who saved his team in the final twenty minutes. "You've got to go to the cage to score goals and that's what coach (Dan Bylsma) told me and I'm trying to get there."
Both teams wanted to prevail and capture the final period, but either couldn’t have imagined what would come to pass later on.
Marleau and Kennedy were head on against each other, with the former growing the score 2-1 with less than fifteen minutes remaining. Kennedy knew that he had to come up to the challenge as teammate http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/players/profile?playerId=3124 and captain Sidney Crosby are both out with injuries, and he sure did, forcing the match into OT with a wrist shot from Couture at the 19:10 mark on the clock.
Marleau did what his counterpart did, this time not tying the match but breaking the ice with less than four seconds remaining in the short five minute time span in OT, saving his team from a deadly shootout.
"I don't really care how many goals we score, we've just got to win," a newly added James Neal from the Dallas Stars said. "We played well last game, we played pretty well tonight. We need to keep playing well every night and give ourselves a chance."
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