Sharks need more Finals bite with blocking and shot-making

It ended a thrilling overtime period in which both goaltenders pulled off some sharp reflex saves, with the San Jose crowd delighted with its first taste of a Stanley Cup Final game.

Joonas Donskoi scored his sixth goal of the playoffs at 12:18 of overtime to give the San Jose Sharks a 3-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night, giving the Sharks new life after they dropped the first two games of the Stanley Cup Final in Pittsburgh.

Joe Thornton, a long-serving center for the Sharks, felt that the Game-3 result elevated self-belief with his team: “To win this one, it’s a huge confidence booster”. He scored 21 goals in 2015-16. After all, the clock stops the moment the puck crosses the goal line in that instance.

The Sharks’ worry, of course, is that if one or two more of those abundance of shots somehow eludes goalie Martin Jones, they could be down 3-1 going into Game 5 – and a potential Stanley Cup clincher – Thursday night in Pittsburgh.

The San Jose Sharks look to even the Stanley Cup Finals when they host the Pittsburgh Penguins Monday in game four.

Pittsburgh defenseman Ben Lovejoy, who has 15 goals in 334 career regular season games, scored one of the Penguins’ goals in Game 3 and set up the other that was deflected in by Patric Hornqvist.

In an overtime period controlled mostly by Pittsburgh, San Jose got the only goal from a player whose signing out of Finland in May 2015 got little attention. But the 24-year-old Donskoi has solidified himself as a top-six forward on the roster.

Into the 13th minute of overtime, Donskoi took the puck behind the net, skated out and squeezed a shot between two defenders and over the right shoulder of Pittsburgh goalie Matt Murray, who was crouching down for a low shot. The only time the Sharks have held a lead in the series was following Joonas Donskoi’s overtime victor in Game 3.

Today: Pittsburgh at San Jose, 7 p.m.

“As much as you know you can get away with quite a bit, you don’t want to lose that lottery”.

He boasted almost 60 per cent puck possession in the first two games of the final, but was limited to 50 per cent in Game 3.

“There’s been a lot of plays where it’s been nearly there and they get a stick on it”, said Pavelski.

“There’s always something you could’ve done differently”, Murray said on Sunday.

It wasn’t until the penalty was expiring that Ward’s blast beat Murray, the play starting when Thornton picked off a Penguins pass in the defensive zone and fed the puck up ice.

“You just try to worry about yourself and make sure you’re doing your job and as a team you’re doing the things necessary to give yourself a chance to win games”, Crosby said.

The second period kicked off a ceasefire that lasted 19 minutes and mounted to Cold War levels of tension.

“They got a bounce”, he said.

San Jose didn’t get its first shot on goal until more than eight minutes had passed. “So it’s just who can do it for the longer period”. “Just from warmups on, they were incredible for us”.

While Malkin appears to have a good attitude and believes that the “next game” could be the one where he breaks through, the pressure is mounting.

On the game-winner when there was a battle for the puck and then a close-out needed to be made before the Donskoi shot, Malkin looked pedestrian during both opportunities. This series would definitely be 3-0 Penguins if not for Jones’ effort. The Sharks, for what it’s worth, still haven’t played a second of any game in this series with the lead.