San Jose Sharks dominate Dallas Stars with 5-2 victory -NHL Update
Dallas was having trouble keeping San Jose out of their net in the first 40 minutes of game play as the Sharks kept scoring to dominate the Stars, 5-2, on Thursday night, December 8, 2011, at the sold-out HP Pavilion in San Jose, California, United States.
San Jose and Dallas now stand tied for the seventh position in the Western Conference with 31 points, making their upcoming games even more crucial as they look to take each other over in the future.
The Sharks had been struggling in their past two matchups as they lost to the Florida Panthers, 5-3, followed by another loss to Minnesota Wild, 2-1, but it looks as if their offence has finally woken up.
"Sometimes when you move the lines around everybody gets a bit of a wake-up call and people get mad," San Jose coach, Todd McLellan, said. "Those people who got mad had good nights."
San Jose rookie, Logan Couture, kicked off the scoring with his 11th of the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season in the opening minute of the initial period followed by an extension shot by Jamie McGinn 15 seconds later.
Mike Ribeiro made the first shot for Dallas Stars at the 13:37 mark to keep the visiting team alive in the contest and while it looked as if the Stars were committed to keeping up with Brenden Morrow’s equaliser nearly midway through the second on their
first added man advantage of the period, San Jose made sure they did not get any more.
Ryane Clowe, Brad Winchester and Torrey Mitchell added three straight for the Sharks in a six minute time frame to take San Jose to a totally different level and stun the Stars who were unable to score any more after that.
"I just tried to be around the net as much as possible and create room," Winchester said. "We were able to establish a good momentum right away, and that kind of carried us."
Dallas had a decent start and carried it on to the second period but lost it midway through after Clowe added his first of the night.
"I thought we played pretty good," Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. "I think we lost some luster. I wish we could have mustered a little more in the third."
Dallas has the next in Los Angeles against the Kings on Saturday while San Jose will be visiting the St. Louis Blues the same day.
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