San Jose Sharks Take Back Home Ice Advantage

For a team from Northern California, the San Jose Sharks sure knew how to celebrate 4/20 in style!

In a must win game, the San Jose Sharks showed their mettle once again by putting the Avalanche away midway through the first overtime session.

In what is turning out to be a highly competitive series, the San Jose Sharks have regained the home ice advantage they earned throughout the regular season.  With two out of the last three games in San Jose, the Sharks have now have a significant advantage in the seven game series.

The winning OT goal came from Joe Pavelski on what can be described as a one man, "flying V" goal from the Mighty Ducks movie.  Remember that move?  Well the one man who made it happen was defenseman Douglas Murray.

Murray who partners with the offensive minded defenseman Dan Boyle jumped up in the breakout and his 6'4", 250 pound frame came full charge straight into the Avalanche zone.  The Avalanche players converged on him just beyond the blue line.  Murray made a drop pass to Joe Pavelski, steamrolled one guy sending him to the ice and knocked the other two far out of position.

Pavelski picked the drop pass up and used the carnage as a screen and sent a kill shot to the upper corner of the net.  Game over.

This was a playoff goal if I ever saw one.  A brute of a man playing kamikaze and laying waste followed up by the skill of a clutch player in Joe Pavelski, who may be the Sharks Chris Drury when the Avalanche were loaded with stars like Sakic, Forsberg, Bourque, and Blake.  That piece of the puzzle who scores the big goal when it's needed.

Douglas Murray's linemate Dan Boyle felt a need to atone for his freak game three OT gaffe where he put it in his own net from the corner (I thought only amateurs like myself made plays like that).  First of all, that's just part of the game, and sure it was natural for Boyle to be haunted by it; at the same time however he can just really let it go and laugh it off.

Well Boyle didn't let it go and when he had a chance early in game four to make amends on the power play Boyle hit his mark.  Boyle took all the energy and frustration of two straight sleepless nights and channeled it into a laser beam that found the lower corner of the net off the slap shot.  This was the Sharks only score in regulation.

Colorado's young leader Stastny deflected a point shot on the power play to even things up later in the game, yet anyone who saw Dan Boyle's face even while sitting on the bench knew however that he was going to will the Sharks to win.

All of that will rubbed off on Doug Murray who played stellar defense all night.  Murray had his head on a swivel and was picking up every loose man in sight. 

There was one particular scramble in front of the net where Murray was facing a rebounded puck out of his reach that was heading toward an Avalanche stick.  There were two other Sharks there going to block the upcoming shot; neither of them however covered the passing lane to the man standing back door.

With shear intuition, Murray wheeled around and bodied up the open man, tucking the opposing player's stick between Murray's elbow and rib cage as if to say, "I don't care if I get a holding the stick penalty, you are not scoring the game winner on my watch."  No penalty was called.

The Sharks were not as dominant as they were in game three of the series.  This game was a step slower on both sides and there wasn't nearly the hostility we saw in game three.  While game four wasn't as good a showing in terms of team play, the Sharks did what they needed to do and won the game even though it wasn't their best effort.  The playoff grind is already showing signs of its effect.

You couldn't say Nabokov stole the game for the Sharks.  The game was pretty evenly matched.  What you can say however is that he won it for us.  Nabokov played just as well as Anderson did and out-dueled his counterpart to the end.  Nabokov stopped all but one perfectly deflected shot that short hopped him over his pads.

Pivotal Game five will decide who goes up three games to two and therefore who has the first shot to eliminate their opponent in game six which shifts back to Colorado.

Game five comes Thursday night and the tank will be a rockin'!