Sharks 4, Blues 1

Tuesday November 26, 2002

ST. LOUIS (AP) The St. Louis Blues couldn't get to Evgeni Nabokov until it was too late.

Nabokov stopped 32 shots in leading the San Jose Sharks to a 4-1 victory Monday night over the Blues.

``We wanted to come out with a lot of energy,'' St. Louis defenseman Al MacInnis said. ``We got some good shots and had some good chances, but their goalie made the saves.''

St. Louis outshot the Sharks 13-4 in the third period, and 33-21 overall.

Vincent Damphousse, Brad Stuart, Marco Sturm and Patrick Marleau scored for San Jose. Scott Mellanby beat Nabokov on the power play to spoil the shutout bid with 3:59 remaining.

``Nabokov played a very good game,'' San Jose coach Darryl Sutter said. ``He only gave up a power-play goal late, so obviously, he played well.''

Goals by Stuart and Sturm in the second period gave San Jose a 3-0 lead and chased Tom Barrasso.

``We're not pleased,'' St. Louis coach Joel Quenneville said. ``They are things we could improve. We need to play with passion like we did in the third period. The third period was a lot more passionate than the first 40 minutes. We had better effort and better determination.''

Blues wing Keith Tkachuk returned to the lineup after missing 11 games with a broken left foot. Tkachuk, who had four goals and eight assists in eight games, played on a line with Mellanby and center Pavol Demitra. Tkachuk had four shots on goal and took a 10-minute game misconduct.

``Keith Tkachuk is not Superman,'' Sutter said. ``It's the first time he's played in a month.''

The Blues went 6-5 in Tkachuk's absence after experiencing the best 10-game start in the team's history. Tkachuk's injury happened six games into the Blues' nine-game winning streak.

Since then, the Blues are 3-6 and Tkachuk said they need to work harder in front of the net to get back on the winning track.

``We had some shots, but we need to get shots from in front and make him work,'' Tkachuk said. ``We've been shooting too much from the perimeter instead of going to the net and getting gritty goals.''< ^Notes@: Sharks C Ryan Kraft scored his first NHL point with an assist on Sturm's goal. Kraft appeared in his first game on Saturday against Pittsburgh. ... The Sharks will complete a season-long eight-game road trip Wednesday in Nashville. San Jose will have played 15 of its last 23 on the road ... The Blues recalled D Christian Laflamme from Worcester after reassigning D Tom Koivisto to Worcester. ... In the third period, there were 11 penalties called on San Jose and 12 on St. Louis. For the game, San Jose had 17 penalties and St. Louis had 20 penalties.

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)