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Sharks' five power-play goals sink Red Wings

Oct 20, 2006 - 5:15 AM SAN JOSE, California (Ticker) -- The sluggish Detroit Red Wings were a step slow all night. The San Jose Sharks made them pay for it dearly.

Patrick Marleau scored two goals and Milan Michalek added a tally and two assists as the Sharks netted a franchise record-tying five power-play goals in a 5-1 victory over the Red Wings.

Jonathan Cheechoo and Mark Bell also scored for San Jose, which went 5-for-13 with the extra skater.

"We watched the game last night, you can see how aggressive they are on their penalty kill," San Jose's Matt Carle said. "We felt if we could make plays early, capitalize on them, that we'd be able to get some goals.

"Once you get those early goals on the power play, your confidence starts building and you feel like you can do anything out there. We were really working it around out there tonight."

The Red Wings, who surrendered three power-play goals in a 4-1 loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday, have only killed off just 15-of-23 penalties (65.2 percent) in their last two games.

"I think they scored on the first power play they had, and we had the same penalty problems as we had the other night," Detroit captain Nicklas Lidstrom said. "That's the thing. We can't put ourselves in that situation. They had three or four 5-on-3s on us and you can't give a team that good that many chances."

The Sharks (6-1-0), who are off to the best start in franchise history, decided the issue early with three first-period goals with the man advantage.

"(The win) was pretty big," Marleau said. "They had a game last night, they came out pretty strong, got into some penalty troubles, and we took advantage of it. We got off to a lead, it seemed from there on it was pretty good."

"We took advantage of maybe a team that was a little leg-weary," San Jose coach Ron Wilson said. "I thought if we got the puck in deep, and we skated through the neutral zone, that we'd get a number of power plays. We watched them play (Detroit) against Anaheim last night, another fast team. You need to execute that things that you need to do."

After Michalek gave the Sharks a 1-0 lead at 6:35 of the first period, Bell and Marleau scored three minutes apart to make it 3-0 and chase goaltender Chris Osgood.

Osgood, who stopped only four shots, was replaced by Joey MacDonald, who turned aside 13 of 15 shots in his first NHL appearance.

"I came in with four minutes in and then all of the sudden they threw everything at me, 5-on-3s for a minute and a half so it gets you into the game quick," MacDonald said. "Fortunately they didn't score on me there, but overall I felt pretty good. It's a tough situation when you come in like that."