San Jose Sharks cruise past Minnesota Wild 4-3
Devin Setoguchi lit the lamp twice and Benn Ferriero tallied the game-winning goal, as the San Jose Sharks edged past the Minnesota Wild 4-3, at HP Pavilion on Saturday night.
Logan Couture also notched a goal and Patrick Marleau earned two assists for San Jose, who notched their four consecutive win. Antti Niemi turned aside 23 shots for the victors.
"We're trying to be as consistent as we can," Couture said. "We're putting together better shifts back-to-back now."
Mikko Koivu found the net twice for Minnesota, who had a three-game winning streak snapped. Niklas Backstrom surrendered four goals on 42 shots in the losing effort, while Brent Burns had another goal for Minnesota.
Couture got Sharks on the board for a 1-0 lead midway through the opening period, as he fired a wrist shot from the right wing past Backstrom. Minnesota did not take long to level the game at 1-1, as Koivu countered less than two minutes later on a blistering
shot from the right point, which trickled past Niemi into the net.
Minnesota’s joy was short lived however, as Setoguchi scored two goals after going nine play-offs without a goal.
Setoguchi put San Jose back in the lead at 2-1 in the fourth minute of the middle stanza. The play was set up by Patrick Marleau, who received a long pass from Dan Boyle, and stick-handled though a couple of Wild defenders before hitting the puck to Setoguchi.
Backstrom blocked Setoguchi’s first shot, but Setoguchi followed up his own rebound and buried it into a half-open net.
He netted his second goal of the game on a power-play just three minutes later. With Clayton Stoner off for holding, Setoguchi made chest-high deflection of a Joe Pavelski’s shot to make it a 3-1 game. That goal was not official until a video review determined
Setoguchi’s stick was not too high for the deflection.
Koivu then pulled one back for Minnesota to make it a 3-2 game in eighth minute of the third period, as his slap shot bounced past Niemi for his second goal of the game.
The Sharks then regained their two-goal advantage at 4-2 in the fourth minute of the final session. The goal came when Joe Thornton grabbed the puck between the circles and chipped it ahead for Ferriero, who waited until Backstrom moved for a poke-check,
and knocked the puck into the net.
The Wild then managed to cut the deficit to 4-3 with just three and a half minutes left in the final period. It happened when Backstrom was pulled for an extra attacker, and was then lifted again with 35 second to play, but the visitors could not complete
the comeback.
Minnesota Coach Todd Richards praised his opponents after the game. He said, “We had trouble handling their speed. They were coming extremely hard. You have to give them credit. They’re big and they can skate. Our execution was a little off but they had
a lot to do with that the way they were playing.”
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