San Jose Sharks hand Dallas Stars fifth straight loss with 4-1 win -NHL Match Update
Dallas is currently facing their worst slump of the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season as they lost their fifth straight matchup with the San Jose Sharks dominating the Stars, 4-1, Saturday night, November 19, 2011, at the American Airline
Center in Dallas, Texas, United States.
"We're in a hole. There's no question about it and you can't just jump out of a hole this deep. You have to kind of dig your way out and dig your way up," said Dallas coach, Glen Gulutzan said.
Antti Niemi had a near shutout with his 30 out of 31 saves for a save percentage of .968, while his counterpart in the Dallas net, Andrew Raycroft, faced 38 shots and fell short on four to allow the Sharks to take the match.
Winning the match was something San Jose was certainly expecting since they were coming in with only one thing on their minds, which was victory.
"Prior to the game we talked about composure and discipline," Sharks coach Todd McLellan said. "We knew they'd taken a ton of penalties, they were the second-most penalized team in the league. We thought that would come into play at some point and we needed
only two power-play goals. I was happy we responded physically but we were quite disciplined."
Brent Burns scored his fourth of the regular season during their first power play opportunity of the night, giving Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau an assist. San Jose also gave a penalty nearly a minute later but they managed to kill it off after playing
for two minutes without Douglas Murray.
Logan Couture scored another 1:23 into the second period while Brad Winchester extended the lead before the five minute mark, sending the Sharks into the third and final period of regulation with a commanding lead.
Jamie McGinn had the fourth in a row while Mike Ribeiro finally put Dallas on the scoreboard with less than 14 minutes to go and down by three, which the Stars failed to equalise.
San Jose Sharks will be looking for a third straight victory when they face-off against the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday while Dallas hopes to snap their losing streak against the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.
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