Peter DeBoer: 'You have to win all kinds of different ways'

Headed into Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final, there were all sorts of “keys to the game” for the San Jose Sharks to keep in mind if they were going to win against the Pittsburgh Penguins and keep the series going.

Try to get on the scoreboard first. Minimize the opposition's chances. Get special teams rolling. The usual.

But after a wild Game 5 in which the Penguins dominated the majority of the game but never gained a lead, it’s hard to pinpoint one singular thing that led the Sharks to victory. Pittsburgh outshot and out-chanced the Sharks on their home ice, but it was Team Teal who emerged victorious to keep its Cup dreams alive.

“105 games into the season, you have to win all kinds of different ways,” DeBoer told the media in a conference call the day after his team notched the Game 5 victory.

One of those ways was getting contributions from tops players — Brent Burns’ opening goal and Joe Pavleski’s empty-netter stand out. Another way was the masterful performance by netminder Martin Jones, who stopped a Pittsburgh offense that appeared to have control of most of the game.

“There are a lot of things I liked about how we played,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan told the media after the game. “I loved our energy… I thought we were fast… I thought we controlled territory. We controlled scoring chances. We controlled the shot clock…”

All those positives were no match for Jones, who made a staggering 44 saves and stopped Pittsburgh short of doing victory laps with the Stanley Cup around the Consol Energy Center rink on Thursday evening.

“He made saves I don’t even think he thought he made,” Penguins winger Patric Hornqvist told reporters post-game. “We had a lot of chances, and he was unbelievable.”

DeBoer agreed the following day: “If he doesn’t have that performance, we aren’t playing another game.”

Jones’ performance is more impressive still given that the difference in shots and attempts has been incredibly lopsided all series — no more so than in Game 5. Pittsburgh outshot San Jose 46-22 and out-attempted the Sharks 76-36. The Penguins rallied after a 2-0 hole early in the first frame to knot the game up before the first 20 minutes expired — per Elias Sports Bureau, that 5:06 is the fastest that four goals have been scored in a Stanley Cup Final.

When asked about the disparity in shots and attempts in Thursday’s game, DeBoer said that the number on the shot clock is “not always an accurate reflection” of the game itself. “Our analytics run deeper than the shot clock.”

Eyeballs will probably still be glued to the shot clock on Sunday evening while the Sharks, no matter what "keys to the game" they use for success, host the Penguins in Game 6.