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Clowe remains hot as Sharks win third straight

Jan 7, 2007 - 8:06 AM SAN JOSE, California (Ticker) -- Two days after a career effort, Ryane Clowe outdid himself.

Clowe registered his first career hat trick to help the San Jose Sharks to their third straight win, a 5-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets.

In Thursday's 9-4 rout of Detroit, Clowe notched his his first career two-goal game. He was one better in this one, scoring once in the opening period and twice in the third to raise his season total to eight.

"Yeah, it feels great," Clowe said. "I kind of did that in Cleveland for a couple of years before I came up here, playing in front of the net like that, I scored probably 15 goals like that in the lockout (2004-05) year."

"The goals Ryane Clowe scored are tough, right there in the crease," San Jose center Joe Thornton said. "Working for him like that, obviously, for him to score two the other night and three tonight, he's playing great for us. Now we're going to start expecting that every night out of him."

Following a four-point performance on Thursday, captain Patrick Marleau recorded a goal and two assists, while Thornton set up three tallies for the Sharks.

Gilbert Brule and Nikolai Zherdev scored power-play goals and Fredrik Norrena made 28 saves for Columbus, which has lost four of six.

A key for San Jose was its power play, which went 5-for-10 with the extra skater.

"It's really tough playing a team this good on the power play when you take a lot of penalties," Columbus left wing Frederik Modin said. "We were in the box a lot, and you can't do that against a team that is number one in the league on the power play.

"The key tonight, I think, is staying out of the box and not giving them so many opportunities on the power play."

San Jose defenseman Christian Ehrhoff had a "Gordie Howe" hat trick - a goal and assist and a fight.

"Yes, I'm familiar with the term," Ehrhoff said. "It's fun, it's good. It doesn't happen too often for me, I would say. First fight since I came to America. I had a couple in Germany, but I don't count those."