Nabokov sets NHL record in style

San Jose Sharks netminder Evgeni Nabokov became the first goalie to win 11 straight road games in NHL history. Nabokov made a career-high 50 saves and shut down all three shootout attempts in a game where the Sharks were completely outplayed by the Detroit Red Wings. Thanks to his play, the Sharks pulled out a 3-2 win in the shootout to beat the Red Wings for the first time this season.

This was arguably Nabokov’s best game of the season.

He was forced to make desperation saves all night and somehow managed to keep the puck out of the net while the Wings toyed with Sharks defenders. The Wings peppered Nabokov with at least 14 shots in every period outside of overtime.

Nabby has been playing tremendous hockey these last few weeks and has crept into the Vezina conversation if he wasn’t already in it. He now sits near the top of the league in most of the major goal-tending categories.

It seems that the Russian Olympic team will be getting Nabokov at his best for the tournament.

After playing in Columbus yesterday, the Sharks looked sluggish at points and were just waiting for Nabokov to cover the puck so they could get off the ice.  The effort was there but most of the players were just plain worn out by the end of the night.

However this is a game that they would not have won last season.

It required guts to get through, scoring from an unlikely place, an amazing game from Nabokov and a star player coming up big when he had to. Though he probably had one of his worst games of the year, Patrick Marleau put in the only goal of the shootout on the last attempt.

The Sharks got goals from Joe Thornton, and Dwight Helminen, his first with the team. Detroit’s goals came from Johan Franzen and Jason Williams. Niclas Wallin also contributed his first assist as a Shark.

Kudos to Ryane Clowe and Marleau for finally trying new moves in the shootout. Who could have ever imagined that trying something new would change the result in the shootout? Nabokov was able to stone Pavel Datsyuk, Williams, and Todd Bertuzzi.

There were lots of interesting battles between Olympic teammates in this game. Nabokov robbed Datsyuk on more than a few occasions and Douglas Murray was going head-to-head with the likes of Olympic teammates Tomas Holmstrom, and Henrik Zetterberg all night. Joe Pavelski got into a tussle with Brian Rafalski after a couple whistles too. I’m not sure how aware these players were that they’ll be playing alongside each other in basically a few days.

Line Juggling

Right on the heels of the Olympic break, coach Todd McLellan split up the Team Canada line of Thornton, Marleau, and Dany Heatley. Devin Setoguchi moved up to the first line and Marleau moved down to center the second line with Pavelski and Clowe. This strategy was probably implemented after being shutout in Columbus yesterday and some of the injuries to players like Manny Malhotra.

Next Game

The Sharks will play their final game before the Olympic break on Saturday when they head into Buffalo to take on the Sabres.