One can imagine Matt Murray blasting some Taylor Swift in his earbuds after Game 3, as the Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender was clearly in "shake it off" mode after the overtime loss.
Still, he appears quite ready to move on to Game 4 with his confidence well intact.
"I definitely don't dwell on it," Murray said after the game, according to Dan Rosen of NHL.com.
"After a goal goes in you can't take it out of the net and you can't take it off the scoreboard, so you move on and you just worry about stopping the next one," Murray continued. "I made a couple good saves there in the third and a couple in overtime. Unfortunately that one (in OT) gets past me, but I felt really good all night to be honest."
Even with veteran Marc-Andre Fleury - who won a Stanley Cup in 2009 - ready and able to step in, Murray's calm demeanor bodes well for a bounce back in Game 4.
The 22-year-old has certainly demonstrated an ability to do just that over the course of the postseason, posting a record of 3-0 following a loss.
Joonas Donskoi lived out a dream in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final.
The San Jose Sharks rookie scored the game-winning goal in overtime, further garnering the respect of his teammates, including all-world defenseman Brent Burns.
"It's great for him. What a special moment," Burns said after the game, according to Michael Traikos of Postmedia. "You score in overtime, Stanley Cup Final, it’s pretty badass.
"It's no secret for us, he's been great all year and it's been fun to watch for us him come in. He plays beyond his years."
The Finnish forward may be a rookie on paper, but the 24-year-old came to the NHL with plenty of professional hockey experience in his home country, with 60 goals in 271 career games with Liiga's Karpat.
Donskoi recorded 11 goals and 36 points during the regular season and has upped his game in the playoffs, where he has six goals and 12 points in 21 games.
While there's sure to be plenty more goals to come in Donskoi's career, an overtime goal to secure San Jose's first win of the Stanley Cup Final will be hard to top.
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For the fourth time in the past five years, at least two games of the Stanley Cup Final have been decided in overtime, and thanks to a 3-2 win for the San Jose Sharks in Game 3, this year's championship series rests at 2-1 in favor of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Here are three primary reasons why the Sharks came out on top of a game they simply had to win.
His name is Joonas
The hero of the night was rookie forward Joonas Donskoi, who assisted on Joel Ward's game-tying goal (more on that below) and scored the overtime winner.
Originally drafted by the Florida Panthers in 2010, Donskoi was signed by the Sharks last summer after his rights were relinquished. The 24-year-old brought plenty of professional experience with him to the NHL after several seasons with Karpat of the Finnish Elite League, and it's paying off when it matters most.
Following Saturday's heroics, Donskoi now sits in a tie first among rookies with six goals this postseason, and ranks second with 12 points. And in scoring his second game-winning goal of the playoffs, Donskoi also became the fourth rookie in Sharks history to notch a postseason overtime goal.
Donskoi is also only the sixth rookie to register an overtime goal in the Stanley Cup Final - and the second to do so in as many games, following Conor Sheary's goal in Game 2's extra frame.
The Penguins appeared to have warded off a massive opportunity for the Sharks early in the third period after San Jose was awarded, but failed to take advantage of a four-minute power play.
Enter Joel Ward, who skated into the offensive zone as the man advantage expired and rocketed the puck past Matt Murray.
That he was able to find a lane and get that shot off is significant, seeing as the Penguins blocked 38 shots on the night. While the shot count fell in Pittsburgh's favor (42-26) for the third time this series, the shot attempts were fairly even, and Ward's awareness to shoot on an odd-man rush gave the Sharks a much-needed boost.
The game-tying marker was Ward's seventh goal and 13th point of the playoffs, both of which matched his previous career highs.
Mr. Jones is a big star
Despite a losing record in the series, Sharks goaltender Martin Jones has been fantastic in net, posting a better save percentage on far more shots against than his counterpart.
Player
Shots against
Saves
Save %
Matt Murray
74
68
.919
Martin Jones
113
106
.938
With the team's top offensive players being held off the scoresheet, Jones has been the brightest star for the Sharks through three games, and his play is arguably the main reason why this series doesn't sit 3-0 in favor of Pittsburgh.
The rest of the roster will need to get on his level in order to even up the series in Game 4 and make the Final a best-of-three affair heading back to Pittsburgh.
The San Jose Sharks failed to effectively establish territory in the attacking zone in losses to the Pittsburgh Penguins in Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup Final.
However, on home ice for Game 3 on Saturday while staging the first Stanley Cup Final clash ever contested at The Shark Tank, San Jose saw a steady increase in sway, ultimately leading to a quick-strike attack off a dogged forecheck and a goal that would ensure its rise in the Western Conference gauntlet wouldn't be all for naught.
Joonas Donskoi scored the decisive goal a little more than 12 minutes into the first overtime period in Game 3, circling and firing a riser off the ear of Matt Murray, and in. But his moment would've never been without a tenacious, yet tidy offensive zone pressure from a patchwork unit from Pete DeBoer.
Here's the play that got the Sharks back in the Stanley Cup Final:
The lead-up begins in the defensive zone, with Marc-Edouard Vlasic knocking a puck flipped in the Sharks' end past Chris Kunitz and safe onto the stick of Joel Ward. Ward collects, sweeping it along the wall past Bryan Rust and down softly into the Penguins' end off a deflection from Nick Spaling. This has Melker Karlsson on the chase to begin the series-altering forecheck in a 50-50 battle with Ian Cole as both teams change.
Karlsson uses his momentum to crash Cole into the glass, dislodging the puck. Justin Schultz arrives in support of Cole, but Karlsson's quick release from the contact forces Schultz to rim the puck blindly in the other direction, and to no specific target. The Sharks have now established the zone.
Chris Tierney has a chance to win the race to the puck, but recognizes it's rolling around the boards to an oncoming Donskoi. So Tierney pulls up and settles into a support position beneath the goal line, placing his stick down as a target. Donskoi rebounds it back along the boards to Tierney with a one-touch pass, then darts to below the goal line between Cole and Evgeni Malkin, who are now closing in on the puck.
Karlsson sprints back to the bench, leaving Tierney and Donskoi playing a one-two game below the goal line. Tierney never truly gains possession, but is able to knock the puck between his legs toward the cutting Donskoi, who boots it into space opened up further by Schultz overplaying his weak-side coverage.
With Malkin on the chase and Schultz too far to close out, Donskoi's able to push the puck out to the bottom of the circle to create a decent shooting angle. There, he turns and fires the climacteric riser between tardy defenders, and over top a rookie netminder crouched down far too low.
"Just tried to hit the net," Donskoi said postgame. "I think I've had a lot of scoring chances through the whole finals; It was time to get it in."
Donskoi's winner is his sixth goal and 12th point of the postseason, and his third contribution in the series - obviously none bigger.
Sharks get overtime win in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final, details on expansion, salary cap & more in this morning’s collection of NHL headlines. THE MERCURY NEWS/TRIBLIVE.COM: Joonas Donskoi’s overtime goal gave the San Jose Sharks a 3-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 3 of the 2016 Stanley Cup Final. Their victory […]
It was a paramount moment for the San Jose Sharks. It was pure ecstasy for Finnish play-by-play announcer Antti Makinen.
With incredible enthusiasm and cries that surely tested the limits of his vocal cords, Makinen narrated another glorious moment in Finnish hockey this season: Joonas Donskoi's overtime winner in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final.
San Jose Sharks top-line winger Tomas Hertl's status for the remainder of the Stanley Cup Final remains unknown.
Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said Saturday that Hertl remains day to day with the suspected lower-body injury believed to have been suffered late in the team's Game 2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Hertl was unable to practice during multiple days off between Games 2 and 3 before being ruled out for the Sharks' return to home ice.
The San Jose Sharks avoided setting a rather unenviable record Saturday night.
The Sharks entered Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Pittsburgh Penguins having lost all four of their games that required overtime in the 2016 playoffs.
No team has ever lost five overtime contests in a single postseason, as pointed out by The Associated Press' Josh Dubow, and Joonas Donskoi's game winner prevented San Jose from doing so Saturday.
There's obviously still a chance the Sharks will lose another overtime contest before the end of the final, but for now, they've cut the Penguins' series lead to 2-1 and improved to 1-4 in overtime games this spring.
In the first-ever Stanley Cup Final game in San Jose, Joonas Donskoi skated the puck out from behind the net and went top shelf with a beautiful wrist shot to beat Matt Murray just over 12 minutes into extra time, giving the Sharks a massive 3-2 victory in Saturday's Game 3.
In Game 2, fellow first-year forward Conor Sheary scored the OT winner that gave the Penguins a 2-0 series lead.
