Preview/Lines #49: The 3 C’s of the Sharks’ Winning Penalty Kill

There are many reasons why the San Jose Sharks are the sixth-ranked penalty kill in the league. Bob Boughner, Andrew Cogliano, and Mario Ferraro discussed the reasons Saturday morning and three C’s stood out: Confidence, consistency, and competitiveness.

Confidence

From all three perspectives, a major standout is the confidence that assistant coach John Madden has in and instills in his penalty killers.

The first thing Andrew Cogliano had to say regarding the penalty kill’s success this season?

“It’s very well-coached.”

He went on to discuss how that affects the players on the ice.

“I think that’s something where you get players that take pride in it. I think that helps when you have players that know their job and want to do well on it and want to kill the penalty and take a lot of pride in it,” Cogliano said. “When you get a2 coach that knows what he’s doing and teaches it really well and players that want to do a good job, you get a good result.”

“He shows a lot of confidence in us,” said Ferraro. “At the end of the day, he knows it’s about what we do and how we work out there, and that confidence he instills in us helps us go out there and do our job.”

Consistency

Boughner noted the consistency: “For the most part, we’ve had the same killers, so you see the chemistry between Cooch [Logan Couture] and Cogs [Cogliano]. The second guy, whoever’s fresh, can be Bones [Nick Bonino] or Niets [Matt Nieto] and then Tommy [Tomas Hertl]. You sort of try and go five, and then you platoon somebody in there when Rudy [Rudolfs Balcers] is not in. Sometimes you give [Noah] Gregor a chance, but Rudy is usually one of our penalty killers.”

Cogliano went on to echo this sentiment:

“We’re a unit and a team where I notice he’s not changing a ton in terms of different power plays. He makes the right adjustments at the right times, which I think only former players and penalty killers can see, which is very impressive. It’s a sense of we’re going to do what we do out there, and we’re not going to adjust overly too much for a lot of teams.”

Competitiveness

For the style of penalty kill the San Jose Sharks have used this season, Cogliano had only good things to say.

“I think Mads’ system is aggressive, it’s well taught,” he said. ” I’ve been doing killing for a long time and this is probably the most enjoyable I’ve seen in terms of being in a unit because you’re attacking and you’re very aggressive and if you get scored on being aggressive, you get scored on making other teams earn it, you live with that.” 

“I think when it comes to PK, it is being aware of who you’re PK-ing against,” noted Ferraro before finishing with, “It definitely comes down to having great goaltending, which we have been, and also the hard work to retrieve pucks when there are loose pucks in the corner, or you see an opportunity to jump and get the puck out.”

SAN JOSE SHARKS (22-21-5)

The Sharks are looking to bounce back against an exciting overtime loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night. This is how the Sharks lined up in practice yesterday:

#SJSharks lines this morning at practice:

Barabanov-Hertl-Meier
Balcers-Couture-Nieto
Cogliano-Bonino-Gregor
Dahlen-Pederson-Gadjovich-Viel

All d-men present and accounted for. Hill not here, so Reimer should get the start versus Vegas

— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) February 19, 2022

Jonathan Dahlen and Ryan Merkley are expected to play; it should still be the same defensive pairings as the last game. James Reimer will start.

Lots to smile about at skate this morning! 😄 pic.twitter.com/QKiaLVGeJi

— San Jose Sharks (@SanJoseSharks) February 17, 2022

VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS (28-18-4)

The Golden Knights come into San Jose with Jack Eichel expected to make his third appearance for the team.

This is how their lines looked on Friday night.

VGK switching the lines up a bit again

Pacioretty-Eichel-Stephenson⁰Marchessault-Karlsson-Smith⁰Janmark-Roy-Dadonov⁰Carrier-Howden-Kolesar

Hague-Pietrangelo
McNabb-Theodore
Hutton-Coghlan

— SinBin.vegas (@SinBinVegas) February 18, 2022

Golden Knights Gameday #51: Much Needed Win, Lines, Notes, vs Sharks

WHERE TO WATCH

Puck drop between the Vegas Golden Knights and San Jose Sharks is at 5:00 PM PT at the SAP Center. Watch it live on AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain and NBC Sports California. Listen to it on the Sharks Audio Network.