Los Angeles Kings goalie Jonathan Quick (32) stops a shot attempt by San Jose Sharks center Joe Thornton (19) during the first period of an NHL hockey game Saturday, April 7, 2012 in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
A 3-2 come-from-behind overtime victory over the Los Angeles Kings at HP Pavilion on Saturday night will send the Sharks into a first-round Stanley Cup playoff matchup with an old nemesis, the St. Louis Blues.
San Jose trailed 2-0 after two periods, but goals by Dan Boyle and Patrick Marleau pushed the game into overtime, where a backhand shot by Boyle with 1:02 left in the extra period beat Kings netminder Jonathan Quick to cap the turnaround.
The Sharks finish the season with 96 points and enter the playoffs as the Western Conference's No. 7 seed. The Blues, with 109 points, ended up behind Vancouver in the race for the Presidents' Trophy.
San Jose lost all four regular-season meetings against the Blues this season. Their series will begin in St. Louis as early as Wednesday.
San Jose and Los Angeles were tied going into Saturday night's game that essentially became a battle for the No. 7 seed when the Phoenix Coyotes captured the Pacific Division title earlier in the day, ending San Jose's streak of four consecutive division titles.
For two periods, it was all Los Angeles as power play goals by Justin Williams and Mike Richards staked the Kings to a 2-0 lead. But an even strength goal by Boyle and a power play tally that gave Marleau 30 for the season knotted things up for San Jose before the period was half over.
Before the game, coach Todd McLellan made the case his team still had plenty of incentives to turn in a strong
performance even if the division title was beyond reach."The concern of our staff is we take a collective sigh of relief as a team and we let our guard down.," McLellan said after Saturday's optional morning skate. "We've got to play and we've got to play hard. Our game here sets us up for whatever the adventure going forward is. We want to play hard. We want to play well."
Both teams wanted to cut back on the penalties that totaled 63 minutes in their Thursday night game that ended in a 6-5 shootout win for the Sharks.
That they did, but two penalties that Marty Havlat took cost the Sharks as he was in the penalty box for slashing Richards when Williams scored at 11:09 in the first period and for tripping Kings defenseman Matt Greene when Richards beat Sharks goalie Antti Niemi at 19:04 of the second.
McLellan gave backup goalie Thomas Greiss a rare appearance to start the third period and 35 seconds later the Sharks were on the board when Boyle's shot from the high slot eluded Kings netminder Jonathan Quick.
A boarding penalty on Greene for driving Tommy Wingels into the glass at 8:01 led to Marleau's goal, with Logan Couture serving as a distraction on both San Jose scores.
- Los Angeles Kings coach Darryl Sutter indirectly praised San Jose netminder Antti Niemi before the game in drawing a comparison with his own goalie, Jonathan Quick, who is expected to be a Vezina Trophy finalist. The two netminders, of course, gave up a combined 10 regulation goals in Thursday night's shootout.
"It's a big challenge when you play San Jose," Sutter continued. "San Jose has a goaltender that's won a Stanley Cup. He quietly goes about his business and doesn't get much credit, only criticism. And we have one that gets a lot of credit."
- Douglas Murray was back in the lineup after missing the previous four games with a lower body injury while Jason Demers' string of eight consecutive games ended.
Michal Handzus also was back in the lineup after missing five games, replacing Torrey Mitchell who suffered an undisclosed injury during Thursday night's game in Los Angeles.
McLellan said that the fact his four lines have been playing well has kept Handzus out of the lineup, but also gave him time to heal from an earlier injury.
"Now him drawing an assignment tonight does two things," he continued. "It gives us a big body, it gives us a faceoff guy, which we were poor in LA for most of the game. It gives us a guy that can penalty kill and play on the power play. And it also gives him an opportunity to get his game together at least once before the playoffs start."
For more on the Sharks, see David Pollak's Working the Corners blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/sharks.
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