Sharks Stop Oilers 3-0
Mike Vernon made 21 saves for his fourth shutout of the season as the San Jose Sharks beat the the Edmonton Oilers 3-0 Wednesday night.
Patrick Marleau, Shawn Burr and Stephane Matteau scored for the Sharks as Vernon posted his first career shutout over the Oilers.
The Sharks scored 2:41 into the game on a goal by Marleau, the 10th for the rookie. Marleau, back in the Sharks' lineup after sitting out two games, took a feed from Jeff Friesen and beat goaltender Curtis Joseph with a hard wrist shot.
San Jose went ahead 2-0 after capitalizing on a giveaway by Edmonton defenseman Boris Mironov. Mironov blindly passed the puck up the boards right to Mike Ricci, who quickly fired a shot at the Edmonton net. Burr was alone in front of Joseph and knocked in the rebound for his third goal.
The Oilers failed to get the puck out of their zone again at 1:41 of the second, allowing the Sharks to swarm the net with Matteau eventually scoring his eighth.
Edmonton did not get a shot on Vernon until nearly 11 minutes into the second period.
With 1:42 left in the third period, Vernon got involved in a fight between Todd Marchant and Andrei Zyuzin. Vernon threw three punches at Marchant and ended up holding on to Joseph, who skated the length of the ice to join the battle.
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