Sharks’ Shields Puts Up Barrier

Paul Kariya burst in alone with the puck Friday. This was trouble.

One of the NHL’s top scorers in a can’t-miss situation. A 1-1 tie was about to be broken. Except San Jose goalie Steve Shields was equal to the moment.

Shields flung his body to the left and snagged Kariya’s backhand shot less than two minutes into the third period.

A three-goal barrage followed, giving the Sharks a 4-1 victory at the Pond. It moved them to within a point of the Ducks for the sixth playoff spot with a week left in the regular season.

That the Sharks have closed fast in the last month has a lot to do with Shields, who is 9-0-2 in his last 11 starts.

Shields stopped 28 of 29 shots Friday with several spectacular saves, the best being on Kariya’s breakaway.

“I was surprised he went with the backhand,” Shields said. “It gave me time to get down and take away the net.”

But this is how it has gone for Shields since March 9 and it could make for a tough decision come playoff time.

Do the Sharks use veteran Mike Vernon, who is recovering from a groin injury but has been to four finals and won two Stanley Cups? Or do they go with Shields, who has been unbeatable?

“Oh, I have been beaten lots of times,” Shields said. “The puck just hasn’t gone in the net.”

The Ducks had the same rotten luck Friday. Their lone goal came on a power play, when Tomas Sandstrom’s one-timer beat Shields to the left. The rest of the night belonged to Shields.

He spent the better part of Friday’s game extending himself from one end of the crease to the other.

They weren’t ordinary saves against ordinary players. Twice he stopped a wide-open Kariya close in.

In the second period, a poor pass by Shark defenseman Bill Houlder left the puck on Kariya’s stick five feet from the goal. Shields somehow managed to snag Kariya’s quick backhand shot while lying on his side.

“He was sharp,” Coach Darryl Sutter said.

He has been for a while.

Shields began the night with the seventh best goals-against average in the NHL, a mark he lowered to 2.12. He also ranks in the top five in save percentage at .924.

With Shields and Vernon, the Sharks have a 2.25 goals-against average.

“This is working out like we planned it before the season,” Sutter said. “We thought Vernon would play about 3,000 minutes and Shields 2,000.”

The Sharks plucked Shields from near obscurity. He was the backup goalie in Buffalo, but that meant he got to watch Dominik Hasek make lots of pretty saves.

Shields career plans improved when the Sharks picked him up during the off-season for a second-round pick to fill the void caused by Kelly Hrudey’s retirement.

“I was really happy about it,” said Shields, who played 10 playoff games in 1997 when Hasek was injured.