The San Jose Sharks returned from the Christmas break rested and ready to start on time. Unlike the last few games, the Sharks were ready to go from the drop of the puck and then didn’t let up no matter what twists and turns the game took. Which is why Natural Stat Trick’s Game Flow chart in all situations shows a steady increase in Sharks possession as the game wore on.

San Jose received contributions from up and down the lineup 12 players registered at least a point in this game and there were six different goal scorers, including Ryan Reaves.

Looking at HockeyStatCards GameScore Impact Card, many of the players had good nights.

There were positive showings from young defensemen like Sam Dickinson and Vincent Iorio, the latter of whom registered an assist and was plus two after playing 14:56 of ice time. Shakir Mukhamadullin didn’t get a point last night, but he logged 20:55 of ice time and was a plus one. Again, there are positive strides for our young defensemen.

Top line magic

And then there’s the top line, there young Macklin Celebrini seems to spark whoever’s on his wing. Head Coach Ryan Warsofsky changed up the lines to put William Eklund on the top line and hopefully get him going. It worked. Eklund scored in the second period, his ninth of the season.

Eklund has been snake bit a bit this season, but hopefully a few games alongside Celebrini will get him going and he’ll be able to energize a second line and drive that line himself. Maybe just in time for the return of Michael Misa.

Eklund also got an assist on Celebrini’s goal a bit later in the game. Some solid work down low by Eklund and rookie Igor Chernyshov helped get the puck to Celebrini who was surrounded by three Canucks and still fired it past Thatcher Demko.

And while it wasn’t with the top line, we’ll say it was top line influenced, because in his fifth game in the show, Chernyshov got his first NHL goal.

It was Chernyshov’s goal that turned out to be the game winner. All in all the first line had a good night. All three players had a goal and an assist apiece. Chernyshov one upped them all by earning himself the Shark Tooth necklace.

Need to play better in front of Askarov

The Sharks have gotten into a bad habit defensively in front of Askarov of expecting him to bail them out of mistakes. This was especially apparent on Vancouver’s first goal of the game, the goal by Linus Karlsson.

You want to see a stronger defensive play there from Dmitry Orlov, who should have a body on Karlsson to push him out of the play or at the very least negate his stick. It’s been a long time since we’ve watched Sharks’ defensemen body opponents out of the crease on a consistent basis and we need to see more of it.

And on Vancouver’s third goal, it felt like an unnecessary turnover with a two goal lead.

Yes, you want to play with creativity and aggressiveness on the power play and you want your stars to be your stars, but they also need them to be aware of the game situation. This was not the time for a low-percentage flashy play and Askarov didn’t bail them out this time where he normally does.

Askarov had some flaws in last night’s game. I would have liked to see him make that save on the 2-on-1 even after the bad giveaway. That said, the team needs to play better in front of him to prevent some of these opportunities from happening in the first place.

Highlight

I’m going to give the highlight of the night to John Klingberg who has scored in each of the Sharks last five wins including last night.

Klingberg now has nine goals and 16 points this season.