It was the highly anticipated match-up between the top two teams in the Western Conference, and it didn’t disappoint.
The San Jose Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks went goal-for-goal in the opening period Tuesday, going to their respective dressing rooms tied 3-3 after 20 minutes.
The scoring didn’t come at nearly the same pace the rest of the evening, however things got heated when Sharks center Andrew Desjardins caught Blackhawks veteran winger Jamal Mayers with a devastating - and controversial - open-ice hit and was ejected from the game for a match penalty, hit to the head.
Blackhawks’ defenseman Duncan Keith immediately jumped in to fight Desjardins. The Hawks, thanks to goals from Patrick Kane in the second and third periods, went on to a 5-3 victory.
As per Brodie Brazil, the Sharks rinkside reporter for CSN Bay Area, the NHL has rescinded the match penalty to Desjardins.
Mayers commented on the hit following the win.
“We’re trying to get that out of our game,” Mayers told the Chicago Tribune. “It’s unfortunate that happened but we got a power play out of it and most importantly, we won the game.”
Sharks head coach Todd McLellan took an opposite stance, believing Desjardins didn’t deserved a match penalty.
“It was a terrible call,” McLellan told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I don’t know if we were going to be able to come back or not, but at that point we were still in the game. We had every opportunity to win. We should have been on a four-minute power play.”