Shark Attack Wounds Birds in Richmond Quarters

South Island Thunderbirds, December 31, 2009

Wednesday was a pretty good day to be a shark.

At the NHL level, the day started with four of the San Jose Sharks being named to Team Canada for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, including the team’s top line of Joe Thornton, Dany Heatley and Patrick Marleau and defenceman Dan Boyle.  Three hours later, just a few notches down the hockey ladder, in a battle of the last two winners of the Elite Division in the Richmond International Midget Hockey Tournament, the defending champion San Jose Sharks U18 AAA team knocked off the 2007 champion South Island Thunderbirds by a score of 7 – 0.

The Sharks, like the rest of the US teams competing in the Elite Division, came to the tournament as an older and bigger group, enjoying the benefit of the different age bracket that applies in their home jurisdiction.  The San Jose team was comprised of 8 players born in 1991, 8 in 1992 and just 4 from 1993 and 1994 combined.  That contrasts with the Thunderbirds, who brought just one player born in 1992, 7 in 1993 and 10 born in 1994.

The size differential took its toll physically over the first two periods as three different Thunderbirds went down with injuries, leaving the team with just seven forwards and five defencemen by the start of the third period.  Up to then, and in spite of the mounting score in favour of the Sharks, who led 2 – 0 after one period and 4 – 0 after two, the T-Birds competed hard and very effectively.  The South Island team outshot San Jose 16 – 9 in a dominant second period and led 28 – 26 in shots overall to that point, but were simply “out-finished” by their opponents.

The Sharks came out hard in the first frame and enjoyed a slight edge in play, though a couple of power play opportunities for the Thunderbirds afforded some chances at the San Jose end as well.  The Sharks scored first, at 11:21 of the period, on a missed coverage by South Island defenders.  A wide shot from the point was picked up behind the South Island net and the puck was quickly thrown up the middle to a wide open Marco Gagliardi, who quickly fired a wrist shot into the exposed side of the net.  That was followed less than two minutes later by another similar effort from Pierce Baron on the power play, who cruised alone down the middle to take a pass from Stanton Turner circling below the red line.  Baron wired a wrist shot over T-Bird goaltender Ryan Waldhaus’ left shoulder.

The second period belonged to South Island, assisted by the fact that San Jose took five consecutive penalties.  Unfortunately, the Thunderbirds did everything but score, missing on breakaways, backdoor passes and a number of other quality chances.  Give credit as well to San Jose netminder Luca Mullane, who calmly turned aside all 16 South Island shots and left the T-Birds frustrated that they could not close the gap.

Twice, San Jose tallied in the middle period against the run of play.  The Sharks went up 3 – 0 at 2:54 of the period on a rebound scramble that was converted by Paul Kazarnovsky, who jammed the puck through the maze of bodies and under a horizontal Waldhaus trying hard to freeze the puck to get the whistle.  Then at 17:06, Chris Penoit one-timed a pass from the end boards into the net for a back breaking fourth goal.

At the second intermission, South Island Head Coach Rob Milliken reminded his troops that they deserved better for their efforts to that point and urged upon them that if they could score early on the power play to start the third period, the game could still come back to them.  Unfortunately, there just didn’t seem to be enough left in the T-Birds’ legs at that point as the effort expended with a short bench of healthy skaters had taken its toll.  They could not find the net on that power play and from then on, the scoring chances became harder to come by.

San Jose got its fifth goal at 7:02 on a rebound off a breakaway, knocked in by Baron for his second of the game.  Then at 8:44, Penoit deftly roofed a sharp angle shot over Waldhaus right shoulder.  The last meaningless goal came in the game’s final minute when Turner batted a rebound off the end boards out of the air and just inside the right post for one last example of the Sharks’ superior finish this day.

The loss ends the Thunderbirds’ run for the Elite Division title and propelled the Sharks into the semi-finals on Wednesday night against the Moose Jaw Warriors.  In the other semi-final matchup, the BCMML’s Valley West Hawks advance against the Alaska All Stars.

The Thunderbirds return to action on January 9 and 10, when they travel to Ladner to face the first place Greater Vancouver Canadians (18 – 6 – 2).  When these two teams met in October in Victoria, the Thunderbirds earned a win and a tie.  The Canadians competed in the Mac’s Midget Tournament in Calgary this week, finishing 1 – 2 – 1 in the round robin portion.

With 9 days off until that next game, hopefully the T-Birds can mend a few of the aches and pains and get some reinforcements in place as needed for the team’s last 16 regular season games.