Photo credit to San Jose Sharks twitter. Sharks Logan Couture skates by the bench while the Sharks goal horn goes off at SAP Center in San Jose on Sat Oct 29, 2022
By Titus Wilkinson (@TitusWisme)
In what was a very close affair the San Jose Sharks played host to the Tampa Bay Lightning and lost on home ice by a final of 4-3 on Saturday night.
The start of this game was quite the reverse of last game against the Toronto Maple Leafs were they got off to a solid start. Instead in this one the Lightning would strike very early into the game.
The goal was not quite as quick as Couture’s goal last game but instead 31 seconds in Victor Hedman finished on a nice pass across by Brayden Point.
Unlike last game though the Sharks responded extremely fast as Erik Karlsson who has been absolutely on fire potted his 5th goal of the season. It was a nice feed from Tomas Hertl that let Karlsson skate right in and snipe it past Andrei Vasilevskiy.
After the flurry of goals to kick things off the teams found themselves locked in a stalemate exchanging shots and looks. Both teams also got a power play opportunity in the period though both teams struck out on the chance.
Later in the first though right after the one power play opportunity for the Lightning Alex Killorn shot one from the slot and puck ricocheted right out in front. Waiting there was Ross Colton who deposited into the wide open net past James Riemer.
That ended up being the final goal of the period with the shots ending in favor of the Lightning at 11-6.
It took a little longer to find the first goal of the period but finally Nico Sturm broke the silence on a wrister from far out that made Vasilavskiy look very human. It was one that he definitely would want back while Luke Kunin and Marc-Edouard Vlasic got the assists.
The rest of the second period played out tightly similar to the first period. 18:41 into the second though Killorn got himself on the board again.
This time it would be a goal with Nick Paul and Erik Cernak getting the assists tying the game in the dying moments of the second. Making the score 3-2 heading into the third in favor of the Lightning.
Despite the late goal the Sharks started off the third period on a positive note drawing a penalty. With Karlsson getting another opportunity to shine he did just that.
Right off the opening faceoff of the power play the puck was won back to Karlsson who skated right into the slot and ripped another one home. Timo Meier and Tomas Hertl got the assists on the goal while Karlsson’s goal total is now up to 6 on the season.
The third period then played out in a very methodical fashion with both teams making sure not to make a mistake.
For the Sharks though they ended up making a crucial mistake in the dying minutes.
With Brayden Point skating in the Sharks defense backed up and let him feed it across to Brandon Hagel who then fead it right back across to a wide open Nikita Kucherov. He tapped it in and the Lightning took the lead with only 56.2 seconds remaining on the clock.
The Sharks tried to get the late tying goal but the effort would not be enough as they skated off the ice with the loss.
The San Jose Sharks next game is at home against the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
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