The road was very kind to the San Jose Sharks in the regular season campaign.
It appears little will change in the post season as the Sharks head home for Game 3 in their series with the Los Angeles Kings, holding a 2-0 series lead.
Joe Pavelski came up big again on Saturday night with the first goal of the game, his third of the series, and the Sharks won, 2-1.
Joe Pavelski, File photo by Jack Lima
“It was a hard-fought game, a man’s game out there,” Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said. “A lot of physical contact, a lot of battles, two teams fully invested and I thought our guys really did a good job of showing up and playing that type of game.”
The key so far has been the Sharks’ willingness to step into every fray with the Kings and not back down from despite the Kings’ size and strength.
“That was one of the better starts we’ve had against this team,” Pavelski said. “When you score first it’s always good. It’s good to see guys really push for another one. A lot of the lines were creating chances and we drew a lot of penalties along the way. It was good and we let our momentum carry us through.”
Pavelski beat Jonathan Quick with a neat wrister from the right circle off a pass from Brent Burns. The goal came with less than four minutes gone in the opening frame.
“Big goal by our captain,” DeBoer said. “Always a key to play with a lead, especially against L.A. With how well they defend and how big and heavy they are, you want to play out in front of them. It was critical to get that first one. We knew they were going to push and for us to get the first goal really got us in the game.”
The Sharks made it 2-0 on a 5-on-3 power play with a goal by Logan Couture at 8:44 of the second period. Pavelski had a shot on goal blocked away but with Quick sliding out of position, Couture had a gaping maw to shoot at.
“They’re doing their part and we’re not doing our part,” Kings center Anze Kopitar said. “When we get on the plane [to San Jose on Sunday afternoon], we’ve got to get it in our heads that we have got to play better. We will play better.”
The Kings turned up the pressure in the third period but only Vincent Lecavalier was able to make it count with his first goal of the series.
“We’ve got to do a better job of getting traffic and getting guys to the net, fighting through box-outs and getting those second- and third-chance opportunities,” LA’s Milan Lucic said. “Right now, we’re not doing a good enough job of it. We need to figure it out quick if we want to turn things around. We’ve got to stop playing with frustration and start playing with determination.”
Quick took the loss on 21 saves.
Martin Jones made 26 saves for his second win.
Game 3 is set for the SAP Center on Monday (10:30 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, TVA Sports, PRIME, CSN-CA).
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