Maxim Lapierre scored his first of the playoffs, and Roberto Luongo has 27 fire - and a brutal first period - for the Canucks giveaway. Game 2 is Wednesday night in Vancouver.
Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau scored and Antti Niemi stopped 35 shots for the Sharks, arriving off the coast of the emotional draining game 7 victory on Detroit Thursday night.
San Jose took a lead of 2-1 in the third period with a goal on his only power play and the gift of Luongo. But after failing at several chances late in the second, Vancouver has finally converted in the third.
Alex Burrows obtained behind Dan Boyle on the left wing rush and fed a pass through and return to pinching Bieksa at the top of the circle of right face. Wrist shot of the Bieksa taken sliding Niemi left and spent his blocker on the other side.
Dany Heatley takes a penalty playing 32 seconds later and the Canucks power play which looked terrible its first three chances after leading the NHL in regular season, finally converted.
A pass from point of the former defender of sharks Christian Ehrhoff got moving right Niemi and Sedin, whose only other purpose in these playoffs was into an empty net, skated on it the other direction, waiting to drag Niemi before biting a setback ball into the empty net.
Canucks Vancouver Raffi Torres (13) checks Niclas Wallin of the San Jose Sharks, Sweden, on the boards during the first period of game 1 of a hockey NHL Stanley Cup Western Conference final series, Sunday May 15, 2011, VancouverCanada.San Jose, which has almost made a series of 3-0 lead before beating Detroit, went towards the end of the first period with a generous Luongo pass at Thornton.
Luongo, who was killed by a shot teammate off the coast of the mask in the warmups attempted to pass the puck to the top of the left circle behind the net. But Thornton intervened from him and fired into an empty net for his third playoff goal.
Vancouver has equal 1: 49 in the second period after the neck of the Niemi was selected off the coast of the boards and sent behind the net Jannik Hansen, who hit Lapierre Cup before between two defenders for a quick shot past Niemi s glove.
But the Canucks offshore since the Elimination of Nashville on Monday night, could not convert the first three games of powers of the game, failing to register the same shot on two.
San Jose is not lost time marking on its first chance, with Marleau left alone in the slot to divert the point of Boyle shot to Luongo glove. It was the second goal in two games for the often criticized Marleau, whose the first point of the semi-finals of the Conference has become the winner of game 7.
For a while, it looked as if Niemi would make it stand up as a second straight game winning, too. The Finnish stopper, who won one with Chicago Stanley Cup last year, has made a handful of highlight reel stops as the Canucks pushed the equalizer goal towards the end of the second period, robbing Ryan Kesler with its buffer to the right during a wild scramble around the Hansen pliet only with the left keypad.
NOTES: San Jose D Jason Demers was a scratch end surprise unidentified injury and was replaced by Kent Huskins in his first game of these playoffs. F Benn Ferriero was replaced by Jamal Mayers on the fourth line of the sharks after seven previous games. Vancouver dressed big RW Victor MEK on the fourth line instead of the smaller speedster Jeff Tambellini, who made his playoff debut the last game against Nashville in the second round. ... Vancouver LW Mikael Samuelsson, who plays the point on the first game unit of power, has not skated since injures in the fifth game of the Conference semi-finals.
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