San Jose Sharks
Celebrini Scores 1st Goal in Hometown Vancouver, But Sharks Lose 2-1 in OT
The San Jose Sharks take on the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena.
Macklin Celebrini scored, but the Sharks lost their 10th straight, 2-1 in OT.
Period 1
Lines tonight:
Kovalenko-Celebrini-Smith
Eklund-Wennberg-Toffoli
Gushchin-Dellandrea-Lund
Grundstrom-Goodrow-Gregor
Thrun-Liljegren
Cagnoni-Carlsson
Vlasic-Schuldt
2 in: Disorganized-looking power play. Looks like they’re trying to balance PP units. PP1: Cagnoni-Celebrini-Kovalenko-Toffoli-Smith, PP2: Liljegren-Eklund-Gushchin-Wennberg-Lund. Nice bump for Kovalenko, be watching him and Gushchin and Cagnoni closest tonight.
8 in: Nice little pass from Dellandrea to Gushchin in slot.
5 left: Gushchin kind of fumbling the puck at blueline, not being assertive in a dangerous place, don’t like that.
2 left: Solid-looking defensive shift from Cagnoni. Times putting his body on Blueger as puck is coming in. Effort is there and some defensive instincts.
Good start for Georgiev, he could use it.
Period 2
Like Kovalenko jumping Garland, as Liljegren trails Garland to force the turnover. Then like Drew notes, Kovalenko gives it to Celebrini, but smartly skates ahead of Celebrini, pulling two Canucks toward him. Making space for Celebrini.
3 in: Surprised Toffoli didn’t shoot in the slot there on the PP. Kovalenko had done a nice job fighting Hronek in the slot for the puck.
Celebrini goal: Whoa what a shot, Celebrini just snipes it on Nikita Tolopilo, making his NHL debut.
5 in: Gushchin does a nice job beating his check down the ice, that’s Suter, Dellandrea finds him in slot. He’s shown some good pop so far though.
7 in: Nice vision by Kovalenko, lays it into weakside for Liljegren to jump on.
4 left: Schuldt absolutely blows up Raty, clean, feet down, though Remenda is right, Schuldt chased the hit there a little. For some reason, afterwards, Marcus Pettersson smacked an unsuspecting Celebrini in the back, not too hard. I don’t know if that was a case of mistaken identity.
1 left: Georgiev has been great tonight, big save on O’Connor shortie attempt. Ugly San Jose Sharks power play again.
Period 3
Not just Kovalenko, but along the wall, trying to exit, that’s got to get all the way out. Young mistake, but Kovalenko is 25. There’s a player there, if he was 18 or 20 or maybe even 23, you’re pretty excited by the flashes. But a lot of details, lacks consistency, now I watch him really close.
2 in: Like that from Gushchin, fakes going high, then spins and make the pass down low.
Dellandrea penalty: Shame, he’s had a pretty good game tonight, feeding Gushchin, being a pest. Big kill coming up.
Really strong San Jose Sharks PK there, for once. Gregor with a chance, Eklund did a nice job protecting puck from Karlsson to kill time. Beleaguered unit needs this.
Karlsson goal: But then Celebrini gets beat down the ice, looks like Celebrini got caught flat-footed in neutral zone forecheck, he tried to get back, but the Canucks rush had too much momentum, the defense couldn’t step up on it. Too easy. Shame for Georgiev, who has been very good tonight.
9 left: Back-and-forth sequence, good goaltending from both sides, Tolopilo on Toffoli, Georgiev on Blueger. Wennberg does a nice job staying with Hughes, who still hits the open man high.
4 left: Kovalenko has trouble getting it out from behind net, though it was also a little of a gimmicky pass from Celebrini, didn’t put his teammate in a great position.
2 left: Good fight by Gushchin in DZ corner, holds off Canucks on forecheck, gets it somewhere that his linemates can get it out. I’ve liked him tonight, I wonder how he’d do with Smith and Celebrini. I suspect, maybe having played here in North America so long, his game might be safer than Kovalenko’s? Just a thought. Kovalenko has certainly showed some promise in his recent stretch playing with Celebrini and Smith though.
OT
Wennberg-Eklund-Liljegren to start.
2 left: Celebrini icing, 1:08 left, wonder why the Sharks didn’t use their timeout there.
1 left: But now, the Sharks take their timeout, 46 seconds left. Another DZ draw.
Georgiev was impressive tonight! He’s probably playing for his career
Just as long as the Sharks don’t decide to re-sign him.
I really thought the boys had that one.
Sharks so bad in OT. Icing the puck, the Liljegren shot from way out, losing every face-off but one, and the time they did win, gave it right back. The regulation Georgiev goal he gave up was awful, the rest of the game he was great. Really hoped he’d get the shutout, be a nice way to end what’s been a rough season. That Canucks goal, scored by former Sharks 3rd round pick, Linus Karlsson (its been a very modest career). Seeing DeBrusk shed Eklund on the OT winner — a lot of the game felt like Canucks pushing around… Read more »
I hope Sharks cut their losses on the Dellandrea trade this offseason. Seems like that 22/23 season was a complete fluke at this point and Dallas correctly decided to trade him last offseason.
He could be useful as a 13th forward. We’ll have to see what happens in the offseason. No one over 23 is safe is my guess.
Quite certain Toffoli and Wennberg are safe, my boy!
Ah yes, Toff. Of course you’re correct. I should have included people with NTC as safe. Wennberg though, was signed to be traded. Whole reason he got a short deal with overpayment. He could easily go early just like Blackwood. If anything I bet he’s opened a lot of eyes to just how good he an be as a 3C.
Toffoli is likely the next Captain. With Celebrini to follow in a couple of years.
Dellandrea seems to have figured out that being Celebrini’s and Smith’s buddies is his best bet to stick. He wins the tiebreaker if the team doesn’t have obviously better options for next season.
Also I think it’s pretty clear at this point based on Cagnoni’s NHL stint that he’s still not close to being NHL ready. The skating needs to improve quite a bit for him to be ready for the NHL. He has such smooth edge work but the quickness and speed need to be a lot better for such a small defenseman.
Yeah I thought he played decent along the boards but in an open north-south footrace, there’s little he can do about the length of his stride so he needs to develop (as Sheng and many others have already pointed out) that explosive accel / first step. I absolutely think he competes for a spot at camp next year but needs another season in the A, with skating training in the offseasons.
Yeah it really stuck out last night with him being on ice with Hughes. Granted it’s not fair to compare Cagnoni with one of the best skaters in the league who is a Top 2 defenseman, but the gap in skating between the two was massive.
I don’t understand the overtime strategy of playing 3 forwards for much of the 5 minute period. Cags was the guy who should have been the QB. I thought Warsofsky has done a good job for the most part, but some of his game management shows his youth as a coach
I genuinely don’t care much about 3v3 hockey, but when the team’s lost 9 in a row, it’d be nice to get a win.
Still, the biggest mistake in the OT, at least to me, came from a defenseman — Liljegren taking a shot from just inside the blue line. OT is about puck possession and he basically gave it away with that low-grade shot.
Love Cags but he’s too slow to hang with 3v3 in the NHL.
Seriously what a call by Randy tonight, he really deserves his flowers for being a Bay Area sports treasure. He and Drew are right there with Kruk and Kuip in the bay area sports broadcasting pantheon, he even played a role in bringing the sharks to San Jose. Kinda off topic but I just thought he was on fire tonight and it made me think of what a class act he is, and how he is as San Jose shark as teal itself.
Yes I love Randy Hahn! I love that they got Drew back on the broadcast, cuz they’re such a fun duo to narrate the game. Randy was still great during the years when Drew left, but together they’re at their full powers. The chuckles are sincere, and you can tell that they enjoy each other’s company.
Ps I love the Giants too! It’s been a fun stretch lately where the Giants play a few hours before the Sharks, and it’s been great!
When I was a kid playing at the ice center I dropped a stick in the parking lot carrying my gear to the car and Randy himself picked it up and brought it to my dad. He was such a gentleman and it was so cool. Love Randy
back when I was writing about the Sharks, I had a column about the 5 most important people in Sharks history. Never published it, but the list was actually 6 people because I couldn’t separate Randy and Dan. The people who brought the Sharks into our homes. At the time, there was only 1 name in the rafters, original owner George Gund. The other 3 were Jumbo, Patty and Doug Wilson and they’re all in the rafters now. Think the order was DW Jumbo Gund Patty Dan and Randy So, by my own thinking, the next two names to go… Read more »
Remenda makes me laugh. When he left the team coming out of the lost season lockout, he said the lockout taught him he can live without hockey, but he can’t live without his family.
Few years later, he’s like “Get me away from these people” and comes back.
10/12/14 were awesome we got to watch giants and sharks into the summer and even wrap around to October sometimes! Buster is bringing back that Giant attitude!
1000% agree
I feel like Dan Rusanowsky is slept on a bit, cuz he does radio. He’s like the Sharks version of Jon Miller.
Absolutely. Rusie’s in the HoF for a reason.
Don’t forget about Pete Stemkowski, he was a gem and a real old time hockey ledgend. Love the Stemmer.
He was awful. Good grief.
National Polish American Sports Hall of Fame member, oh a Stanley Cup winner, too.
He’s in the hockey HOF. No ones sleeping on Dan…
Ok.
I’ll never forget years back during Oktoberfest at Teske’s a very drunk Randy screaming “I love Bavaria!” between every song the polka band played.