PHILADELPHIA – The San Jose Sharks thought they knew what they were doing when they signed Martin Jones in off season to be their number one goalie. Thursday night he made another statement with his third shutout of the season as he made 34 saves in a 1-0 overtime win over the Philadelphia Flyers.
Jakub Voracek says looking for better effort is key for Flyers – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“Over 82 games, you’ve got to win all kinds of different ways,” Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said. “We scored five [Tuesday] in Boston, we won that way. Tonight, it was a goalie win for us. You’ve got to get timely contributions at different points from everybody. No doubt Jones was our best guy tonight.”
Melker Karlsson scored the game-winner with just over one minute left in the extra session.
“I really liked our first period,” DeBoer said. “I thought we had great legs, could have had a couple goals in the first and controlled the period. Then to their credit, they regrouped and really won every battle and every footrace the rest of the way. We were on our heels in the second and third. Our goalie was our best player and gave us a chance to get two points.”
The Flyers’ Steve Mason made 20 saves in the loss, the second straight for Philly.
“We have to find a way to be better,” said forward Jakub Voracek, who was tied for fourth in the League last season with 81 points but has nine points in 19 games this season. “If we would know then we would work on it. I can’t tell you why we’re not scoring goals. If we knew, we’d do something different.”
With the loss, the Flyers fell to 6-8-5 and lost an opportunity to make up two points on the standings with teams ahead of them losing Thursday night.
“We’re just going to keep playing,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said. “We’re going to keep doing the things that we’re doing. We went through a tough period where we just didn’t play well for a few games in a row. We’re doing all the right things now, so we just have to stick with it. Tonight was a tough, hard-fought hockey game, and we stuck through it. We couldn’t get one to go to get the extra point.”
The Sharks have now won four straight and head to Pittsburgh to continue their road trip.
“We needed a good road trip,” DeBoer said. “We talked about that. We talked about taking it one game at a time and just trying to squeeze out wins. We weren’t in a great spot after our homestand. To our guys’ credit, it was a bit of gut check, and we’re finding a way here.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.