San Jose Mercury News – Sharks’ Rissmiller atones for error with winner

April 12th, 2007 by chuq

San Jose Mercury News – Sharks’ Rissmiller atones for error with winner

San Jose Mercury News – Sharks’ Rissmiller atones for error with winner:

Patrick Rissmiller took himself off the hook. After his goof in the final minute of regulation allowed Nashville to score and force overtime, Rissmiller atoned by netting the winning goal Wednesday.

He bagged it at 8:14 of the second overtime to lift the Sharks to a 5-4 victory over the Predators in Game 1 of this opening-round playoff series.

Rissmiller skated past defenseman Marek Zidlicky in the left circle to receive Patrick Marleau’s feed. Rissmiller, who had been decked earlier on the shift by Zidlicky, then snapped the puck past goalie Tomas Vokoun from the doorstep.

I felt going into the playoffs that one area the Sharks might be at risk is that the youngsters might struggle with the pressure of the playoffs. I felt we saw some of that last night — Rissmiller’s mistakes in the fourth being a huge one. Ron Wilson, however, simply kept playing them, and you saw the team pull it together and the kids pick it up.

Rissmiller’s goal was tremendous; moreso to me because most players, especially young ones, would have committed to the puck before seeing Marleau was doing so, too, and we would have ended up with two sharks on the puck and none in the slot. Rissmiller reacted and made a great play to know to leave the puck and go to the net, and the Preds defenseman simply couldn’t figure out what to do. A great pass by Marleau, a better shot, and game over. And now, you have to think the Sharks kids are over what jitters they had, and know they DO belong there. And that’s a tough nut for a team to crack. there was a chance in game one, but the sharks skated past it to victory.

(now, imagine if Wilson had benched Rissmiller… it could have really shaken his confidence, and worried the other kids into being too cautious. Instead, rissmiller was given the chance to repair the error, and it ended up all he cost the team was 30 minutes of skating time….)