The San Jose Sharks could have packed it in Sunday night after they fell behind by two goals to the Vegas Golden Knights midway through the third period.
It had already been an exhausting and emotional trip, one in which they had guaranteed themselves a .500 record, and they were without two of their top wingers.
But in another example of how much they have improved in recent weeks, and how much their confidence has grown, the Sharks came back to force overtime on late goals by Calen Addison and Mike Hoffman.
But after a scoreless overtime, Kevin Labanc and Mikael Granlund could not capitalize on their shootout attempts, and Golden Knights forwards Jonathan Marchessault and Jack Eichel finished theirs to hand the Sharks a 5-4 loss at T-Mobile Arena.
“It would have been easy to mail this game in,” Sharks coach David Quinn said. “It’s been a long trip, you’re 3-2, you feel really good about your trip so far and you’re playing probably the best team in the National Hockey League.
“We just battled from the minute the puck dropped until the minute the game ended.”
The Sharks finished their road trip with a 3-2-1 record, and now have points in seven of their last nine games.
“They’ve been playing good hockey,” Eichel said. “Very competitive, and at the end of a road trip. They gave us all we could handle, and it was just good that we found a way to get two points.”
Hoffman’s goal, his second of the game, came with 39 seconds left in the third period and marked the fourth time in three games the Sharks have scored while on a 6-on-5.
Mario Ferraro and Calen Addison both added one goal. Granlund had two assists for the Sharks and finished the road trip with 11 points.
After Ferraro scored his first goal of the season 29 seconds into the first period, the Sharks (8-17-3) allowed goals to Marchessault and Chandler Stephenson in the second period and Brayden McNabb to fall behind 3-1.
Hoffman and Addison both scored goals in the third period — sandwiched around a second one from Marchessault — with Addison’s goal coming with 3:45 left in regulation time.
The Sharks announced right before Sunday’s game that both forward William Eklund and defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic would not play. Eklund has a lower-body injury and Vlasic missed the game for personal reasons.
Eklund was on the Sharks’ team bus that arrived at T-Mobile Arena and took part in team warmups but missed his first game this season. Sharks coach David Quinn said after Sunday’s game that he hoped Eklund’s absence would be short-term but wasn’t sure when Vlasic would return.
Givani Smith took Eklund’s spot in the lineup and Kevin Labanc replaced Eklund on the Sharks’ top line with Tomas Hertl and Alexander Barabanov.
The Sharks play the Central Division-leading Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday at home.
At the start of the second period, Anthony Duclair was injured as he was hit in the jaw by the left shoulder of Golden Knights forward Keegan Kolesar right after the faceoff at center ice. Duclair didn’t play the rest of the second period and the Sharks announced at the start of the third period that the winger would not return.
Quinn said he did not have an update on Duclair, adding that didn’t want to comment on the hit by Kolesar until he reviewed it again.
The Sharks had a mantra going into Sunday night’s game against the Golden Knights: turn a good road trip into a great one.
The Sharks went 1-2-0 to start the trip, with losses to the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers sandwiched around a win over the New Jersey Devils. Then came two consecutive comeback victories, as the Sharks erased a three-goal deficit in the third period before beating the New York Islanders 5-4 last Tuesday.
Two days later, the Sharks fell behind by four goals in the second period to the Detroit Red Wings and scored four in response before the second intermission.
San Jose then fell behind by a goal with less than seven minutes left in regulation time, but with Kaapo Kahkonen pulled, tied the game on Tomas Hertl’s goal with 89 seconds to go.
Granlund then scored in overtime for a 6-5 Sharks victory.
“We want to continue to play good hockey and we want to continue to improve in the areas we’ve improved in and tighten a few things up in areas that have hurt us where we’ve given up too many goals,” Quinn said before Sunday’s game. “It’s nice to score but you don’t have to create offense and sacrifice defense. We’ve just got to be a little bit smarter in certain areas and not have the breakdowns we’ve had.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com