The San Jose Sharks defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets by a final score of 3-1.
The scoring started with early with Finnish winger Joonas Donskoi. The breakout from the playoffs netted his first goal of the season on the power play; the lone assist came from ex Devil and Coyote defenseman David Schlemko. In the final period, the Sharks got two goals from center Tomas Hertl. The first goal came off the game early in the third off the power play; the assists were from defenseman Marc-Édouard Vlasic and David Schlemko. The second goal of the game came on an empty netter; Joe Thornton (my player to watch) had the lone assist. Martin Jones was the starting goalie, allowing one goal on 25 shots faced for a 0.960 save percentage (96%).
The Blue Jackets lone goal came late in the third from Scott Hartnell late in the third period; Lukas Sedlak had the primary assist for his first NHL career point; and Brandon Saad had the secondary assist. Sergei Bobrovsky was the starter, stopping 26 of 28 shots for a 0.929 save percentage (92.9%).
Other thoughts:
1. The Spanish jerseys the Sharks are starting this year are genius to get other backgrounds into the sport.
2. The College Rush discounted tickets are great too, but to be used against the Blue Jackets is a bit of a slap to the face because they probably know that not to many people would go to watch them play.
3. Boone Jenner, my player to watch, was a -1 with 4 shots on goal and had 5 hits. Not bad, but the hard work will pay off eventually.
4. The power outage in San Jose was quite the amusement to hear as technological issues can happen at any time at any place. But nobody seemed to have the upper hand, so my guess was the everyone was tired as the time kept getting to the players' body clocks.
CBJ Three Stars of the Night
1. Scott Hartnell- goal (2)
2. Lukas Sedlak- assist (1); 1st NHL point
3. Sergei Bobrovsky- 2GA on 28SA (92.9 SV%)
More to come...