The San Jose Sharks have come up with a postgame ritual, the
passing of a miniature baseball bat to the player judged by his
teammates to have made the key contributions to every victory.
After Tuesday night’s 2-0 triumph over the Washington Capitals at
the Verizon Center that improved San Jose’s record to 8-0-1 over
the past nine games and 3-0 on its season-long seven-game road
trip, it must have been a tough choice.
WASHINGTON
The San Jose Sharks have come up with a postgame ritual, the passing of a miniature baseball bat to the player judged by his teammates to have made the key contributions to every victory.
After Tuesday night’s 2-0 triumph over the Washington Capitals at the Verizon Center that improved San Jose’s record to 8-0-1 over the past nine games and 3-0 on its season-long seven-game road trip, it must have been a tough choice:
Goalie Antti Niemi, whose 25-save performance earned him a second consecutive shutout of a top Eastern Conference team, or rookie Logan Couture, who became the NHL leader with eight game-winning goals as his shot almost 52 minutes into the game broke a scoreless deadlock?
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The locker room chant — “Hey, hey, hey, hey; way to go, Nemo” — provided the answer after the tense game that saw defenseman Dan Boyle provide an insurance goal a little more than two minutes after Couture scored.
It was Niemi’s fourth shutout of the season, and he was quick to draw comparisons to the one that preceded it Saturday against the Boston Bruins.
“I think we kept doing what we did in Boston,” Niemi said. “People kept blocking shots and playing really tight in front of the net.”
And, when asked if he was starting to feel his game was where it was last season when he was in net for the Chicago Blackhawks, his answer might give pause to the rest of the NHL.
“I think I’m feeling probably better right now, feeling more patient,” said Niemi, who was on the ice when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. “Last year I still hadn’t played too many games in the NHL, so I feel much more comfortable now.”
In Saturday’s victory over the Bruins, the Sharks registered only 18 shots. They had that many just three minutes into the second period against Washington and finished the game with 36.
Still, Capitals netminder Michal Neuvirth managed to keep San Jose off the scoreboard until the 35th of those in a contest that was very much in doubt as both teams tried to take advantage of what few mistakes the other made.
“Sometimes 0-0 games are kind of boring, but I don’t think that was the case,” Boyle said. “It was a hard-fought game. It seemed like both teams respected each other.”
The capacity crowd thought Washington had taken a 1-0 lead in the first period when a shot by Alexander Semin, playing for the first time after missing 12 games with a groin injury, trickled through Niemi’s pads and crossed the goal line — after the referee had whistled the play dead.
That left the late-game heroics for Couture, who said a Sharks staff member told him on the ride to the rink that he was tied with Capitals superstar Alexander Ovechkin for the NHL lead in game-winning goals.
“He told me I had to beat him in Washington,” Couture said.
Couture did just that with a shot that came from a tough angle at the bottom of the left faceoff circle, with assists going to Kent Huskins and Ben Eager.
“I think he was thinking pass because he didn’t get down quick enough,” the Sharks rookie said in describing how he scored his team-leading 24th goal against Neuvirth, “and it went through his five hole.”
Does Couture ever surprise himself out on the ice with plays like that?
“That one surprised me that it actually went in, but I don’t think I surprise myself,” he said.
After the victory that pulled the Sharks within one point of the Dallas Stars for the Pacific Division lead, coach Todd McLellan praised his entire team — “Twenty players dressed, 20 players contributed” — but didn’t want anyone to forget about Wednesday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
“We’ve got another one tomorrow,” McLellan said, “and we have to put this one behind us.”
— Story by David Pollak, San Jose Mercury News
