SAN JOSE – David Quinn and the San Jose Sharks know they need to be a much harder team to play against this season to have any chance of improving over last year.
While the Sharks had moments to that effect in the first two games of the season, Tuesday’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes easily represented a step in the wrong direction.
After seeing his team play some of its best hockey of the season through the first five minutes of the third period, Quinn witnessed his team revert to some unfortunate habits the rest of the way in a 6-3 loss to the Hurricanes at SAP Center.
A one-goal Sharks lead with 11 minutes left in the third period turned into a three-goal deficit in a matter of six minutes thanks to two penalties and an unwillingness to skate and engage. As a result, the Sharks fell to 0-2-1 with the Boston Bruins coming to San Jose on Thursday.
“I didn’t like the way we played for most of the night,” Quinn said. “I didn’t think we skated the way we had been, I didn’t think we were physical enough and it ended up catching up to us.
“We’ve got to be way more competitive in our battles than we were tonight. We were way too puck-conscious throughout the game. Soft on battles. So that was disappointing because that hasn’t been the case up to this point.”
A Stefan Noesen power-play goal at the 9:07 mark of the third period, with Tomas Hertl’s tripping penalty about to expire, tied the game 3-3. Seth Jarvis’ power-play goal, with Mario Ferraro serving a cross-checking penalty, came on a dandy one-timer from near the faceoff dot to the left of the Sharks’ net.
That gave Carolina the lead for good with 8:09 left in regulation time, although Martin Necas and Brett Pesce added goals 16 seconds apart later in the third period to seal the win.
The final 15 minutes of the third period were reminiscent of last season. On their way to a 22-44-16 record, the Sharks were outscored 116-75 in the third period, although they also gave up 19 empty-net goals.
“We tried to do things the right way (in the first two periods) and just all of a sudden, something flipped and we were doing the wrong things,” Filip Zadina said. “Weren’t skating … losing battles, trying to poke-check everything instead of going through bodies. That’s how you lose the game.”
The Sharks for the night were called for cross-checking three times, hooking twice and tripping once.
“When you don’t skate and hit, you’re gonna take penalties,” Quinn said. “And that’s what happened. Just bad penalties. Lazy, lazy penalties.
“Puck watching and when we went into a battle, we went and tried to get the puck first instead of getting flesh. Every puck battle we lost, and we lost a ton of them, that was our problem.”
After being outshot 52-21 by Colorado, the Sharks were outshot 42-16 by the Hurricanes. But regardless of the opponent, the Sharks will never be able to get out of their own way until they play with pace and move their feet.
“We’ve just got to skate more,” said Zadina, whose two goals through three games lead the Sharks. “If we skate more, we’ll have time to make plays, get into position. We’ll start to do things the right way if we start skating more.”
With a host of new players and in their second season under Quinn, the Sharks are trying to avoid the same nightmarish start they had last season when they began 0-5-0 for the first time in franchise history.
One can argue that the only reason the Sharks have a point right now is because of Mackenzie Blackwood’s brilliance on Saturday when he stopped 51 shots in a 2-1 shootout loss to the Colorado Avalanche.
The Sharks are now 8-24-12 at home since the start of last season.
“I’m sure that weighs on guys mentally,” Quinn said. “Home, away on a pond in the middle of America, I don’t care where we’re playing. We’ve just got to be harder to play against and tonight wasn’t good enough. It’s certainly way too soft and way too slow.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com