After getting beat the night before by the Anaheim Ducks on home ice, the Sharks didn’t fare any better in Los Angeles. Martin Havlat, recently back from injury, did his best to help San Jose – contributing with their first goal and latter adding and assist – but, it wasn’t nearly enough to keep up with the Kings offense. The two teams played a fairly even first period and it was tied 1-1 after 20 minutes. However the Kings dominated the last 30 minutes of regulation and won 5-2.
Here’s what they were saying back in the locker room…
Coach Todd McLellan on the overall game – “I thought our effort was much better tonight than it was last night. They’re a good team and when you look at the game I thought we had a fairly good start, a good first period, against a team that was rested and ready to play at home…They played a very hard second period. When we regrouped I thought we came out in the third [period] and had some jump on the penalties and it just hurt us. We can’t put ourselves in that situation against a team like this. Even after that we had some push back in our game. The effort was better tonight than it was last night if we are comparing the two games.”
McLellan on the difference between the two teams – “I thought they were harder along the boards, they won more board battles, they came up with loose pucks on their fore-check more than we came up with ours. They used their size and they used their board play to their advantage, especially in the second period that wore us out a little bit. They knew we played the night before. We regrouped between periods and we came out with the energy that we needed but the penalties really hurt us.”
Defenseman Dan Boyle (who scored the Sharks second goal, early in the third period) on the difference between the two teams tonight – “Their effort, probably, especially in the second [period]. They were all over us and were in our zone the whole time. They just had a better jump than we did, or desperation probably.”
Boyle on the penalties called – “It’s tough to give up that much time on the power play. [With] 5-on-3 and 4-on-3, it’s tough to kill for that long. We came back with a big second goal, but their fourth [goal] probably killed us.”
Boyle on the effort displayed – “Both teams are trying. I’m not saying that we aren’t trying; I just want to be clear on that. They were probably trying harder…You work as hard as you can; (but) you need everybody. I think when we have guys going and others aren’t that isn’t going to work at this time of year. We need everybody—six D men, our goalie, all four lines; no matter if you play five minutes or 25 minutes you have to show up.”
The teams have now met four times this season, with the home side winning every contest. They’ll face-off two more times, in LA again on April 5 and then in San Jose (for the final game of the regular season) on April 7.
Update: Did Havlat give a rude hand gesture to the Kings fans after he scored? Full story here.
