San Jose Sharks defeat Detroit Red Wings 4-3 - NHL Play-off Recap
Devin Setoguchi recorded his hat-trick in the extra session, as the San Jose Sharks rallied to take down the Detroit Red Wings 4-3 in Game 3 of the Western Conference semi-final series, at Joe Louis Arena on Wednesday night.
Dan Boyle also lit the lamp and Joe Thornton earned three assists for San Jose, which has a 3-0 lead in this series and will look to close it out in Detroit on Friday.
Antti Niemi turned aside 38 shots for the Sharks, who also went up 3-0 in the semi-finals last season against Detroit before winning the series in five games.
Nicklas Lidstrom scored a goal and had an assist while Patrick Eaves notched a goal for the Red Wings, who have lost seven consecutive play-off games to San Jose by one goal. Pavel Datsyuk also added a goal while Jimmy Howard was strong between the pipes,
but came up just short in the loss, stopping 34 shots.
"It's a tough loss and it's especially tough cause we had the lead late and let them tie the game," said Lidstrom. "We just have to dig deep and find a way to win the next game."
Setoguchi got the Sharks on the board with about seven minutes left in the opening session, when he swept in the puck from in front on the power-play for a 1-0 lead.
However, Red Wings knotted the game at 1-1 on a power-play with 22 seconds to play in the first period. The goal came when Henrik Zetterberg chipped a back-hand pass off a turnaround to Lidstrom, who ripped a one-timer from the slot past Niemi.
Eaves put Detroit on top by a 2-1 lead with six minutes remaining in the second period, when he fired a back-hander from the left circle after a scramble in front.
Setoguchi pulled an equaliser, 2-2 for the Sharks on a power-play less than one minute later, when he snapped a shot from the left circle that he did not get all of, but enough to put it past Howard.
Red Wings recovered their one-goal edge, 3-2 on a power-play with less than two minutes left in the middle period. Zetterberg gave a nice cross-ice pass to Datsyuk, who unleashed a sharp wrist shot from the left circle past Niemi.
San Jose succeeded to find another equaliser and sent the game to over-time, as Kyle Wellwood let go a blind, sweeping pass from the deep left boards that made its way over to the right side for Boyle, who buried it into the net.
In over-time, Thornton controlled the puck at the right boards and waited there for few seconds. Then he looked up and slipped a pass to the top of the right circle for Setoguchi, who blasted a shot on net that hit off Zetterberg’s stick and went into the
net for a 4-3 win at 9:21 mark.
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