Fight Night at the Tank

No there wasn't a boxing match or an MMA card featured in San Jose last night. No it wasn't one of us live blogging the NCAA tournament looking to beat up Bob Wenzel. It was the third period between the San Jose Sharks and Vancouver Canucks. What appeared to be a easy Sharks victory, they were leading 4-0, turned into a 10-minute brawl.

It started with a scrum involving Scott Nichol that put the Sharks on a 5-on-3 penalty kill. All hell broke lose after this moment of the game. For the last ten minutes of the game the referee's were quite busy. Fights started and there was one right after the other. And one point in the the third period there were six Sharks players in the tiny penalty box. There were almost as many Shark players in the penalty box as there was on the bench.

Not so shocking the Canucks were able to score two goals and pull within two of the Sharks. The refs were penalizing the Sharks to the point were the Nucks had a 5-on-4 to 5-on-3 to 4-on-3 advantage. Luckily for the Sharks, goaltender Evgeni Nabakov was outstanding making 30 saves.

It was a wild game that I will certainly remember. I've never seen a Sharks game devolve into a brawl like that before. Hopefully for the Sharks, they take this fire into the playoffs this season.

Here are the Sharks penalties from the third period:

San Jose	interference - 2 min	6:24, J. McGinn
San Jose	holding the stick - 2 min	6:59, M. Vlasic
San Jose	cross check - 2 min	7:21, S. Nichol
San Jose	misconduct - 10 min	8:28, J. McGinn
San Jose	roughing - 2 min	9:08, R. Blake
San Jose	cross check - 2 min	9:08, R. Blake
San Jose	roughing - 2 min	9:28, J. Thornton
San Jose	fighting - 5 min	9:46, N. Wallin
San Jose	roughing - 2 min	9:46, N. Wallin served by D. Setoguchi
San Jose	misconduct - 10 min	9:46, R. Clowe
San Jose	misconduct - 10 min	9:46, N. Wallin
San Jose	broken stick - 2 min	19:42, J. Demers

For those of you counting at home that is 51 combine penalty minutes by the Sharks.

Sharks announcer Randy Hahn got off some great quotes during the last ten minutes of the game. Here are some of the highlights.

"Even the Swedes are getting mad." Hahn was talking about the Sedin brothers getting in on the action.

"It's very cozy in the sin bin."- Randy talking about all the Sharks players in the Penalty box.

“I like to apologize for any offensive language that may have leaked into the broadcast.” There were a couple of F-bombs dropped that was picked up on the broadcast.

'The good news is, there's a little more room in the penalty box; there's only five Sharks in there now.' My favorite quote of the night from Randy.

"We've had a spirited third period." A great quote to describe the third period.

Oh yeah there are videos from the night. First we have the scuffle between Ryan Kesler and Niclas Wallin



Next we have Aaron Rome vs. Ryane Clowe



It was certainly a fun night at the Tank.