Blues-Sharks Recap: Sharks Back to Form?

Well, guess what. My first recap game opinion article of the season. And it's going to belong to the Blues-Sharks game that happened Friday afternoon.

Brent Burns was thinking that Friday's game was going to be different but never imagined how important it was to him. He got his first NHL hat trick and the Sharks ended a five-game losing streak to the St. Louis Blues with a 6-3 victory.

Joe Thornton, Tomas Hertl, and Tommy Wingels also scored for the Sharks. They've won their fourth straight and seven of eight. Antti Niemi stopped 21 of 24 shots for his 14th win of the season. Brian Elliot took the loss in his first loss in eight games that he has started.

Thornton now has 17 points in his past 15 games and the Sharks scored their first power-play goal since Nov. 15, a span of seven games. Couture has not scored in seven games and has one goal in his past 11.

So all in all, did the Sharks really win this or did the Blues choke it? In my opinion, I don't think the Blues choke it. Good goaltenders, like pitchers in baseball, get rocked. They've all been rocked. And Brian Elliot should not feel down like this, so there's no problem with the Blues losing this game. They're still in the playoff picture and as long as Elliot can continue to play well and the Blues offense, especially Alex Steen, continues to rocket up the score chart, they can win games. But this game was all about the Sharks and especially Brent Burns.

It must feel good for Burns to score his first career hat trick, but that overlooks a bit about how the Sharks have had problems with their offense in recent games. They've haven's had a power-play goal coming into this game since Nov. 15 and like I said two paragraphs ago, Couture has been ineffective and still is right now. This game was one that the Sharks desperately needed and Burns delivered. I want to see how well this offense, as well as goalie Antti Niemi, does against the high-powered Anaheim Ducks, who go to SJ tomorrow to play them. This game, I don't believe, proved nothing to me except that the Sharks can give up some pretty powerful offense in some games and now I'd like to see that against the Ducks Saturday night.