With a bit more poise and good fortune, the San Jose Sharks could be riding a modest winning streak going into their game with the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday.
Instead, the Sharks have a couple of days to regroup after a back-and-forth game Saturday turned into an aggravating 4-3 loss to the Utah Hockey Club at SAP Center.
Leading 3-2 approaching the midway point of the third period, the Sharks gave up an even-strength goal at the 9:49 mark to Michael Carcone before allowing a power play goal to Clayton Keller with 43.8 seconds left in regulation time.
The script felt all too familiar in the Sharks’ fourth loss in five games. On Tuesday against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Sharks also coughed up a third-period lead, allowing two goals in the final 15:49, including one with 2:39 to go, in a 3-2 loss in Raleigh.
“(Utah) definitely had a push in the third,” said Sharks defenseman Cody Ceci. “We tried to handle it. Going forward, we’ll try and get more of a killer instinct than we have in the past.
“We’ve taken a big step to be in these close games and get wins, so I think the next step would be to get the killer instinct in the third and not be on our heels too much and try and survive games.”
The Sharks were also dominated in the third period by the St. Louis Blues on Thursday. They took a two-goal lead into the final 20 minutes but were out-chanced 16-2, per Natural Stat Trick, before holding on for a gutty, if uncomfortable, 4-3 win to end a six-game road trip.
Nevertheless, while the Sharks have been much more competitive this season than last, third-period leads of late have felt tenuous at best. Now the Sharks are 6-3-1 when holding the lead after 40 minutes, with a treacherous schedule upcoming.
Perhaps this is just the stage the Sharks (11-17-5) are in: good enough to be competitive most nights but not always good enough to finish the job.
“We have a younger group that’s learning as we go, but we’re at what, game 33 tonight? We should start picking up on this pretty quickly, and unfortunately, we’re not,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “We have to go out and try to win hockey games, get on the attack, and that’s something we’ve talked about all year.”
The Sharks held the lead in the second and third periods Saturday but failed to build on them.
Mikael Granlund scored from a sharp angle at the 14:11 mark of the second period to give the Sharks a 2-1 lead. San Jose then had a chance to go up by two, as Utah forward Nick Bjugstad took a roughing penalty less than two minutes later.
But the Sharks did nothing with the man advantage, and later in the second, Utah, on its own power play, tied it up with 1:08 left before intermission on a goal by Nick Schmaltz.
“We just didn’t have a killer instinct to go win a hockey game. We’re still learning that,” Warsofsky said. “It’s disappointing because we came off a long road trip, dug in, worked hard, and did some good things tonight. But in the third period, we’ve got to find a way to go win a hockey game.”
Part of the solution is staying out of the penalty box.
The Sharks had to kill four penalties in the first two periods Saturday and two more in the third. The Sharks might have disputed some of those calls, but spending so much time defending had an adverse effect, wearing down some of their most relied-upon skaters.
The Sharks have now had to try and kill 30 penalties in their last eight games – way too many for most teams, but especially for a relatively young — and rebuilding — one.
The Sharks are 2-10-1 this season when they have to kill four or more penalties.
“Anytime you take six, it’s just a matter of time, and we’ve seen that here as of late,” Warsofsky said of the penalties. “We can kill the first two or three, then four and five get a little more difficult. Really good skilled players (for Utah), they’re going to make you pay. And we saw that.
“We like to be a team that can roll four lines and six defensemen. It gets us out of our flow of the game a little bit. We’ve seen that. We had issues with penalties early in the year, and it’s gotten better, and then tonight kind of creeped in.”
The Sharks fans in attendance certainly felt Utah was not assessed enough penalties. Kevin Stenlund could have easily been called for boarding Macklin Celebrini early in the game, and officials might have missed Logan Cooley’s elbow on Mikael Granlund late in the third period.
Ceci was called for high-sticking Keller, but felt his stick was lifted into the Utah captain’s face.
Still, Ceci said, those things happen, and whatever calls are made can’t be used as an excuse.
“That’s out of our control,” he said. “The biggest thing for us was we were a little too much on our heels in the third and allowed them to get their chances and find their way back into the game.”
The Sharks’ biggest issue is that the loss to Utah might have been their most winnable game before the Christmas break. While the Hockey Club was not in a playoff spot entering Sunday, San Jose’s next four opponents are, starting with the Jets, who lead the Central Division.
After that, the Sharks face the playoff-contending Colorado Avalanche and ex-teammate Mackenzie Blackwood on Thursday, then go on the road to face the Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks.
Getting a lead against those teams, let alone holding onto one, will be challenging.
“The whole season is kind of a learning curve,” Ceci said. “When you’re new in the league, you’ve got to go through it all. It’s definitely something new for us not to let the frustration creep into the next game. We’ve just got to refocus and get ready for the next one. There was a lot of good in the game, but we did get a little too emotional towards the end.”