Sharks 2, Vancouver 1 in overtime

And to think I could have stayed home and watched paint dry….

What can you say? Last game before the All-Star break, and a whole lotta “I don’t want to spend the break in a hot tub” broke out. Vancouver got a goal early on a really good shot on one of their few offensive chances in the first, and went into an 0-5 and tried to hold the lead for the rest of the game.

The Sharks played like they really didn’t care much one way or another. spent lots of time in the offensive zone, little time actually fighting for quality shots.

Yawn. The Sharks woke up late and decided to win it, Vancouver didn’t notice until it was too late, and then Henrik takes a stupid, lazy penalty in OT and that more or less hands the game to San Jose. Vancouver wins a point, San Jose gets two they really didn’t deserve, but neither did Vancouver.

In the “not sure what I expected” department: the arena all but gave Claude Lemieux a standing ovation just for coming over the boards and skating a shift. As I kept saying to people around me, “old guys rule”. I love the Sharks fans, they tend to get the game in ways not all fan bases do, and one thing I think they got here was just how hard Lemieux worked just to get to this point, and they recognized him for it. As do I. He looked in pretty damn good shape for at one point skating for the Vancouver Millionaires.

How’d he do? skated hard, hit bodies, drove to the net, took really, really short shifts, and got a few shots on net. Didn’t do anything that made me think he deserved a promotion off the fourth line, didn’t do anything to make me think he didn’t deserve to be there. Earned a second game in my book, and that’s good enough.

Hell, I noticed him on the ice more than I noticed Sundin. Honest. I mostly noticed Mats skating when he was gliding back to the bench ending a shift. He just didn’t do anything to make me see him taking shifts.

Hey, watching this game was great practice for watching the all-star game, right?

(yawn).

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