SAN JOSE – The San Jose Sharks took some steps forward over the last week with a dramatic comeback victory in overtime on the road and a pair of close wins on home ice.
But the rebuilding Sharks are still not good enough to overcome a bevy of mental errors, defensive mistakes, or a failure to capitalize on a handful of scoring chances at the other end. Few teams are.
Indeed, the Sharks were not happy after their 3-2 loss to Vancouver on Saturday, as a chance to pick up a victory against one of the Western Conference’s better teams – and before a sellout crowd of 17,435 at SAP Center — fell by the wayside thanks to some ill-timed puck management gaffes.
Less than a minute after scoring the tying goal, the Sharks gave up the game-winner to Pius Suter with 25.7 seconds left in regulation time.
The Canucks (5-2-3) controlled the puck inside the Sharks zone before Conor Garland dug it out of the corner and fired it to an open Suter, who wired a perfect shot past Mackenzie Blackwood for his second of the game and fourth of the season.
The Sharks (3-8-2) had a chance to tie the game as time expired, but Fabian Zetterlund fanned on a shot attempt after William Eklund fed him in the slot in front of the Canucks net.
Blackwood made 25 saves in an otherwise solid performance. Nico Sturm had the other Sharks goal.
“It’s a gutting way to lose,” Sharks defenseman Jake Walman said. “We battle back, and it’s in our hands, and we just gave it away.
“I could have stopped that play (on the game-winning goal), and I’ll take accountability for that.”
Vancouver’s second goal with 4:22 left in regulation time had a similar feel. The Sharks scrambled in their own end before Jake DeBrusk gave his team a 2-1 lead.
Mikael Granlund scored with 1:17 left in regulation time to tie the game 2-2. But the ensuing breakdown by the Sharks inside their zone spoiled any hopes they had of at least extending their point streak to four games.
“We’ve got to learn how to win,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “When we play in certain situations, we have to understand what is going on in the hockey game. We cannot have the brain lapses that we have, the line changes that we have, the puck play that we have and think we’re going to win hockey games in this league.”
The Sharks’ three-game win streak featured a 5-4 victory over Utah, a 4-2 victory over Los Angeles, and a narrow 3-2 win over Chicago. The Sharks were anything but perfect in those games but were opportunistic and gained some valuable confidence.
In the third period Saturday, the Sharks killed two penalties but failed to get a shot on goal on two power-play chances. The second one — an interference penalty to Filip Hronek — expired at 15:02.
“Power play wasn’t good. It was not good. I don’t think we even got a chance,” Warsofsky said. “So we’re going to look at that, clean it up, get back to work.”
Just 36 seconds after the penalty expired, DeBrusk beat goalie Blackwood for his first goal of the season.
“It’s about digging in more and being more competitive in those situations,” Warsofsky said. “The focus level’s got to go up, so we’ve got to learn from it.”
With the loss, the Sharks fell to 2-1-0 on their five-game homestand and missed a chance to extend their winning streak to four. The last time San Jose won four straight games was at the start of the 2021-2022 season when it beat Winnipeg, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto.
The homestand ends with games against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday and the Minnesota Wild on Thursday. While Columbus has been up and down this season under new coach and original Shark Dean Evason, Minnesota had raced to a 7-1-2 record before its game Sunday in Toronto.
Macklin Celebrini’s return might be on the horizon. But time will tell if the Sharks can learn from what happened Saturday, especially if they put themselves in a position to win a game.
“Those are opportunities for us to take momentum and take control of the game, and we’ve still got to grasp these situations a little bit more and realize that this is where we’ve got to pounce on the opponents and take the game when it’s there for the taking,” Sturm said. “Really good teams with a little bit more of a killer instinct, they realize, ‘Hey, five, six minutes left in the game, (with a) power play, we’re putting that thing in the back of the net.’
“We’ll get there. I think we’re moving in the right direction, obviously a little bit frustrating. We left some points out there.”
