Marleau's Game Equals Sharks Victory

He's only the second player in NHL history to have four straight multigoal games since Alexander Mogilny had five straights back in the 1992-93 season for the Buffalo Sabres. Patrick Marleau definitely delivered that for the Sharks today, scoring twice on power plays and helping the Sharks win 4-0 over the Colorado Avalanche.

Marleau joins Ottawa's Cy Denneny as the only players that have opened campaigns with four multigoal games. I guess that mean he's part of history.

Let's get to the simple facts. Patrick Marleau is already a great players, who has had trouble in the past getting into the playoffs and winning the Stanley Cup. He's had his C removed, given to Rob Blake, then Joe Thornton, and had trouble on offense from time-to-time. But now he's a different man, who is trying to contribute all he can to a Sharks team that is now sitting a 4-0-0 and very comfortable second in the Western Conference, only behind Chicago, who is 5-0-0 after winning in Columbus tonight.

The power play has definitely come through for this Sharks team. They have 10 goals on 24 chances in this lockout-shortened season. And that says something about this Sharks team. They come through the powerplay and they execute. That's how you beat other teams. Get the powerplay and make them try to stop you. That's what the Sharks are doing and it's working out pretty well.

Thomas Greiss earned his first career shutout, making 24 saves and Matt Irwin scored his first career NHL goal. This is the Sharks' best start since winning their first four games back in 2008-09, before they lost at Anaheim on October 17, 2008.

For the Avs, this is a bit of a setback. They lost their seventh straight game in San Jose since beating them in Game 1 of the first-round playoff series back in 2010. They had killed off 16 straight penalties coming in, but allowed goals on San Jose's first three power plays.

This team is definitely not dead, but it didn't do its job against the Sharks. They are still a great penalty-killing team and they somehow ran into a Sharks team that was hungry for more powerplay goals. Well, guess what, their season is still way early. They can still recover from this bad loss and regroup, but their next few games have them head to Western Canada. I think they can beat Edmonton and Calgary, but Vancouver has a rebuilt form who can expose their penalty kill. So there's time for this Avs team to get it together. This team has the potential to be great. It's just a matter of staying with the penalty kill and keeping their defense in check.