Stars top Sharks, grab share of first in Pacific; San Jose trades for Joe Thornton before game

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

The San Jose Sharks found themselves down three players just before Wednesday's night's game against the Dallas Stars began and three goals down when it ended. The Stars, meanwhile,  found themselves tied for first in the Pacific Division after a 4-1 victory over the Sharks, who made a major trade before the game to acquire Joe Thornton from the Boston Bruins.

The Sharks were without forwards Marco Sturm and Wayne Primeau and defenseman Brad Stuart, who were all shipped to the Bruins for Thornton, one of the game's top players.

"He's one of the top centermen-forwards in the league," Sharks defenseman Kyle McLaren told the Associated Press. "This gives us more offense to carry the load. We're very excited to have him but at the same time we should be mad at ourselves."

Sturm, Primeau and Stuart were all pulled from the San Jose lineup shortly before the game started, leaving the Sharks with 11 forwards for the game.  

The win was the Stars' tenth in the last 12 games.

"It was a good team game," Stars coach Dave Tippett said after the game.

For the Sharks it was their tenth consecutive loss and kept them mired in fifth place in the Pacific.

The Stars controlled play for most of the game, outshooting the Sharks 9-6 in each period. Antti Miettinen, Jaroslav Svoboda, Sergei Zubov and Brenden Morrow all scored for the Stars, who have now won ten of 12 games.

The Stars win, combined with a 3-2 Los Angeles loss in Chicago, pulled the Stars into a first place tie in the Pacific Division and Dallas has two games in hand on the Kings.

The Stars didn't get a power play in the first period, but they did get a penalty shot and took advantage. Antti Miettinen was awarded a penalty shot 5:20 into the game and beat Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov five-hole to put Dallas up 1-0.

"That's pretty much what I tried to do," Miettinen told the Associated Press. "I tried that same move in preseason four times and it didn't work. ... That's what I've been doing in practice on penalty-shot drills, just try to fake glove (side) and shoot five-hole."

The Stars made it a 2-0 game late in the period on Svoboda's first goal of the season and as a Dallas Star. After Nathan Perrott won a race to the puck behind the San Jose net, Steve Ott got the puck, skated to the corner and set up Svoboda, who beat Nabokov from the right faceoff circle at the 17:43 mark.

But just 19 seconds later the Sharks scored to make it a 2-1 game. As Turco went behind the net to play the puck, it bounced away from him and Sharks forward Scott Thornton center it to Alyn McCauley, who knocked it into the open net. 

Each team had a pair of power plays in the second period, but there was no scoring.

The Stars sealed the game with a pair of goals in the third period. The first one game on the power play as Zubov shot from the point found its way through traffic and past Nabokov at 3:55 of the third.

The Stars ran their lead to 4-1 when Morrow and Bill Guerin broke into the San Jose zone on a two-on-one break and Morrow finished it off after taking a pass from Guerin. Time of the goal was 10:58.

Notes:  Sturm, Primeau and Stuart all took part in the pre-game warm-ups for the Sharks, but were pulled from the lineup shortly before the game began.

Defenseman Jim Fahey and Niko Dimitrakos, who were in the press box as healthy scratches, hustled down the to the dressing room to get ready for the game.

Joe Thornton is expected to join the Sharks on Thursday and play against Buffalo on Friday.

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