Shawnna and I went to this game with Angie and Sulak (friends we met on our trip to Hawaii). They had never been to a hockey game before, so we thought it would be fun to introduce them to the greatest sport on the planet. This was a great Sharks game to attend since it was against the interstate rival Kings and it was a "family four pack" game which means the tickets included a hot dog, soda and bag of chips - what a deal! It ended up being a great game for other reasons as well.
The first period got off to a shaky start as the Kings struck first with a soft goal from Scott Thornton (former Shark) that "unintentionally" went in off his skate. However, the Sharks struck back 2 minutes later when Marc-Edouard Vlasic scored his first NHL goal on the power-play by directing a Joe Thornton pass past Dan Cloutier to tie it up at 1. The rest of the period was uneventful with the Sharks registering only 4 shots in the first 20 minutes.
The second period was completely dominated by the Sharks. Just 39 seconds into the period, Steve Bernier scored on the power-play to put the Sharks up 2-1. Joe Thornton kept the momentum going by scoring 1:20 later to increase the Sharks lead to 3-1. Just 58 seconds later, Patrick Marleau added another goal to push the dagger in deeper. More importantly, that was Marleau's 200th goal of his NHL career. The Sharks weren't finished yet - Marcel Goc scored 6 minutes later to put the Sharks up 5-1. To this point, the Sharks had scored 5 goals on 12 shots midway through the second period and that was good enough (or bad enough, depending on your perspective) for the Kings to replace Dan Cloutier in net with Mathieu Garon. That seemed to stop the hemorrhage as there was no more scoring for the rest of the period.
The third period was very similar to the first in that the Kings started it off with a soft goal from Dustin Brown 6 minutes in to cut the lead 5-2. The Sharks struck back a few minutes later when Joe Pavelski scored his first NHL goal in his first NHL game to increase the lead 6-2. After that, the Sharks just coasted through to the end and only registered 5 shots in the period. The Kings got their only quality goal of the game when Lubomir Visnovsky converted a Derek Armstrong pass across the crease to cut the lead 6-3, which is how it ended.
Overall, it was a great game and had so many exciting moments that is was perfect for Angie and Sulak's first time. It was fun to experience it with them as it reminded me of when I first saw a hockey game and became hooked on the action, power and speed. I'm not sure if they'll become as fanatical as I am, but at least they've now been introduced to the greatest game on ice - the rest is up to them... There will be a test on the rules we covered in two weeks :-)
Score: W 6-3
1st Period
Kings - Scott Thornton (Kevin Dallman, Derek Armstrong)
SJ - Marc-Edouard Vlasic(PP) (Joe Thornton)
2nd Period
SJ - Steve Bernier(PP) (Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau)
SJ - Joe Thornton (Mark Smith, Mike Grier)
SJ - Patrick Marleau (Steve Bernier, Marc-Edouard Vlasic)
SJ - Marcel Goc (Scott Hannan, Mark Bell)
3rd Period
Kings - Dustin Brown (Peter Harrold, Michael Cammalleri)
SJ - Joe Pavelski (Scott Hannan, Patrick Marleau)
Kings - Lubomir Visnovsky (Derek Armstrong, Michael Cammalleri)
SJ SOG: 20
Kings SOG: 27
Winning Goalie: Vesa Toskala
Losing Goalie: Dan Cloutier
Tickets: Section 219 Row 7
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