San Jose did pretty much what they wanted but one thing in their Western Conference finals opener against Chicago, win the game. The Sharks suffered a 2-1 loss despite outshooting the Blackhawks 45-40, committed no penalties compared to Chicago’s five and controlled the contest for long expanses of time.Still it wasn’t enough with San Jose was 0-5 on the power play as Hawks goalie Antti Niemi was the difference-maker. “He’s been good for us all year,” Chicago forward Kris Versteeg said. “Everyone seemed to be doubting him except us. We’re confident in him. We have to give him a lot more help than we did tonight.”
The Blackhawks will take a split but have higher ambitions now and are 22-8 against offensive teams scoring three or more goals a game this season.
“The good news is there’s a lot of things we can improve on and that we can do better,” Jonathan Toews said. “When we looked at Game 1 watching the highlights on TV, it looks like they absolutely outplayed us. It didn’t feel that way on the ice. But we know our goaltending was huge keeping us in that game.”
San Jose isn’t devastated by the loss and they know that have clean up miscues and get back to playing how they are capable.
“For the most part we played pretty well,” Sharks defenseman Dan Boyle said. “We made a few defensive mistakes. But again, to get 45 shots against a team like that, keep them at two goals. It could have gone either way.” The Sharks are 35-16 when playing against a team with a winning record.
San Jose is a -140 money line pick on home ice for Game 2 with total Ov5.5. The Sharks are 25-7 after allowing two goals or less in consecutive games and are 5-2 OVER in last seven contests. Chicago keeps peppering the net and is 7-1 on the road after five straight games with 30 or more shots on goal. The Hawks are 14-6 OVER having won four of their last five outings over the last two seasons.
This West Finals has a 10:00 Eastern start on VERSUS and TSN and the underdog has won four in a row in these meetings.
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