In San Jose, Aaron Dell made 30 saves to help the Sharks shut out the visiting St Louis Blues, 4-0.
“I think that was probably the best all-around game we played this year,” Dell said. “It really showed. We played on the defensive side of the puck, we were patient, we waited for our chances and with the skill we have, we were able to burry those and still come out with the win.”
Aaron Dell got the shutout over St Louis Saturday, 4-0 – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
Joe Pavelski scored his 12th and 13th goals of the campaign and Erik Karlsson scored his first goal of the season with the Sharks.
“You always want to score goals,” Karlsson said. “But at the end of the day in here, we’ve done a good job all year, winning games and that takes a lot of pressure off things. I’m not here to play an individual game. I’m here to win games and I think we’ve done a great job of that.”
The Blues dropped to 7-8-3.
“I think we got away from our game a little bit. We got a little hesitant and started watching a bit more. They got confident and came at us hard and we didn’t do enough to counter that,” the Blues’ Ryan O’Reilly said after the game.
Evander Kane also scored for San Jose who improved to 11-7-3.
“We were kind of committed to a team game. We didn’t give them a lot off the rush tonight, which is one of the things we were trying to do. That allowed us to turn over some pucks and get our speed up and play a little faster. Just trying to do the right things. I’ve been finding the pucks a little bit in some good areas, and it’s been going in,” Pavelski said after the win.
Despite outshooting the Sharks in the third period, 11-2, Dell held serve for the shutout.
“I think the one good thing was that we did show some push in the third period,” Blues head coach Mike Yeo said. “We obviously didn’t grab a goal, but we had some good opportunities and if we could’ve got one or two, then who knows? But you can’t come into a building like this against a team like this and put yourself in a hole like that.”
[WATCH: All Blues vs. Sharks highlights]
Chad Johnson made 25 saves in the loss; it was the Blues’ third game in four nights.
“It just seems like we take a step back a little bit, maybe get a little too high off last night’s win,” Johnson said. “It was a pretty emotional win last night and we had to come back and have that same sort of intensity, and I don’t know if it was there or not.”
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