The San Jose Sharks’ team defense was bad last season. It’s even worse now
The Sharks just gave up a seven-spot to a team that had scored just eight goals in its previous five games.
What’s going to happen when they face the Nathan MacKinnon and the Colorado Avalanche at home on Monday and Wednesday night? Or when the first place Vegas Golden Knights roll into town next weekend?
The Sharks on Sunday took a look back at their 7-6 loss to the St. Louis Blues from the night before, and obviously know that something has to change soon. The Sharks have now allowed 17 goals in their last three games, and are about to play four games in six nights against two teams with Stanley Cup aspirations.
“Our own mistakes are what’s going to cause problems,” Sharks winger Kevin Labanc said. “If we turn the puck over in the neutral zone, you know that McKinnon’s going to be coming down 100 miles per hour, stopping and starting and making all the moves that he can to try and score.
“We just have to make sure that we’re playing defensive. It can’t be a repeat of the game we had against St Louis.”
The Sharks had their worst start as a team in 16 years last season and allowed 64 goals in their first 18 games. The goaltending was pilloried, and deservedly so, but the Sharks also gave out odd man rushes and juicy scoring opportunities like candy on Halloween. It was a collective effort.
At the same stage this season, things have gotten even more unpleasant on the defensive end.
Through a combination of puck management gaffes, soft defense and — stop us if you’ve heard this before — spotty goaltending, the Sharks have allowed 70 goals in 18 games as they’ve gotten off to an unsightly 7-9-2 start, only slightly better than last season’s 7-10-1 mark.
After Saturday’s loss in which they could not hold onto four separate one-goal leads, the Sharks have now allowed 45 goals at 5-on-5, a 2.5 goal-per-game average that is the second-worst in the NHL behind the Ottawa Senators (2.83).
In Sunday’s practice, Boughner switched some of his defense pairs, moving Marc-Edouard Vlasic back beside Erik Karlsson and Radim Simek alongside Nikolai Knyzhov.
Vlasic, who had been playing with Knyzhov, had 17:28 of ice time Saturday and has two assists in 18 games this season. It’s likely that Vlasic and Karlsson will spend a lot of time defending either the Avalanche’s first or second line.
“We don’t win games if our best players are average, and he understands the message,” Boughner said of Vlasic. “He’s been way too average for way too long. And it’s a challenge to him to step up.”
No doubt the Avalanche, with MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar, who have combined for 52 points this season, will be licking their chops Monday night when they visit SAP Center.
“We kind of hurt ourselves yesterday,” Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro said. “Just giving up certain chances and not being as detailed as we should have been. It’s a tough one to swallow for sure but we’ve already moved past that.”
Boughner wasn’t saying Sunday as to who his goalie will be Monday. Martin Jones and Devan Dubnyk have combined for an .880 save percentage, which ranks 30th out of 31 teams ahead of only the Senators’ mark of .875.
But the issues, it seems, go beyond goaltending.
Three times, the Sharks allowed a Blues goal within 1:07 or less of scoring themselves. The most frustrating goal against had to be the last one, as the Blues’ Marco Scandella scored just 43 seconds after Logan Couture tied the game 6-6 at the 6:31 mark of the third period.
On the play, three Sharks skaters — Karlsson, Simek and Sasha Chmelevski — drifted toward Oskar Sundqvist in the corner as he carried the puck to the right of Dubnyk. No one, though, could prevent the pass from Sundqvist to the slot, as Scandella got a step on Noah Gregor and one-timed a shot past Dubnyk for his second goal of the game.
“We had two defensemen leaving the net front to do another defenseman’s job when that’s not in our system,” Boughner said. “So they’re mental mistakes and they’re fundamental mistakes that we stress and we talk about every day.”
It was the first time in team history the Sharks had six goals and 40 or more shots on goal and lost. San Jose is now 21-1-1 in those situations.
“Some (mistakes) are self inflicted, that’s for sure,” Boughner said. “Easily fixable? Nothing’s easy. We have to work on it every day, which we did again today (with) our wall work in our own end. On two goals, it was a direct result of throwing pucks blind in the middle.”
When they had the puck or when they were on the forecheck, the Sharks did a lot of good things, especially considering they were without Hertl. Ryan Donato provided a spark as he and linemates Patrick Marleau and John Leonard created a handful of scoring opportunities.
Couture, Kane and Labanc combined for six points, and the Sharks’ power play went 2 for 6 and totaled eight shots to set a season-high for goals in a game.
“Anytime you score six goals, usually you should win the hockey game,” Sharks winger Evander Kane said Saturday. “We gave them a lot. I’d say four of those seven goals, we literally gave them the puck, so that was disappointing.
“You make that many mistakes over the course of the game, sometimes scoring six isn’t going to get the job done.”