SAN JOSE — Coach Pete DeBoer is expecting a more complete game from the Sharks on Sunday now that his team has knocked off some rust from a week-long layoff.
For the first two periods of Friday’s 5-2 win over the Nashville Predators, the Sharks, who hadn’t played since April 22, were trying to get up to game speed.
Things turned around in the third period as they took advantage of two power plays and established a better forecheck to help outshoot Nashville 8-2 in the first 11 minutes.
“The third period is how we want to play,” DeBoer said Saturday. “Get on the attack, play on our toes, play with speed. My problem with the game was we didn’t get that going until the third period. Partly credit Nashville for what they were doing, but I think we can do more to play that game consistently.
“I attribute that to the layoff, and I think we’ll be better on Sunday having a game under our belt here.”
DeBoer thought his top two lines were OK, particularly the second line with Logan Couture, Joel Ward and Joonas Donskoi. He tweaked his lines for the third period, bringing Chris Tierney up to the third line with Patrick Marleau and Melker Karlsson, dropping Matt Nieto to the fourth line with Tommy Wingels and Nick Spaling.
“In the third period, we found more jump in our game on both the third and fourth line, and we were able to be more productive,” Nieto said. “So, I think it was a good switch on (DeBoer’s) part, and whenever he does that, it usually works out well.”
DeBoer said goalie Martin Jones was his team’s best player Friday and credited him with keeping the Sharks in the game through the first two periods, when Predators goalie Pekka Rinne was stopping everything he saw.
“If you’re going to have some guys work through maybe their legs being off, then you don’t want it to be your goalie,” DeBoer said. “It’s tough. He worked really hard during the break, and that’s what we saw.”
Jones had 21 saves through the first two periods and has given up two goals or less in four of his playoff starts. He finished with 29 saves, his highest total since the playoffs began.
The no-goal call on the ice stood after the NHL said the video review was inconclusive in determining if the puck crossed the goal line between the normal position of the posts.
“If it would have gone in, I think it’s supposed to be a goal,” Karlsson said. “It was very close, but I don’t know. I think it went in, but I don’t know. If they can’t see it, they can’t see it.”
Karlsson finished with 13:02 of ice time and had three shots on goal, but felt his line could do “a lot better than that. First 40, the offense didn’t work as we wanted it too, but as long as we play good defense, I think we’ll be good.”
For more on the Sharks, see the Working the Corners blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/sharks. Follow Curtis Pashelka Twitter.com/CurtisPashelka.