San Jose Sharks Listless In Shutout Loss Against The Rangers
The San Jose Sharks headed into their final game of a four-game, East Coast swing looking to head home with a winning road trip and stand alone atop the Pacific Division. Playing their third game in four nights with a bevy of injuries, the Sharks looked flat and slow as the New York Rangers handed them a decisive 4-0 loss to conclude their road trip at 2-2-0.
This was by far the worst performance of the year from a San Jose team that looked tired and sluggish. In a lot of different areas, this looked like the 2014-15 version of the Sharks team rather than this year’s version.
Turnovers. Plenty of odd-man rushes against. Slow through the neutral zone. Basically, all of the areas where San Jose had shown improvement in this year went out the window in this one.
Make no mistake, the Rangers are a good team and their transition game was on full display as the Sharks played right into the strengths of this New York team.
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Even Martin Jones, who had been stellar in his first four appearances, couldn’t save the Sharks on this night allowing four goals on 28 shots in his first mortal performance of the year. San Jose recorded their lowest shot total of the year with 22 shots on goal as they didn’t apply the kind of pressure on backup goaltender Antti Raanta until the game was out of hand.
From start to finish, the Sharks were simply outplayed, and that’s going to happen over the course of an 82-game season. It’s the defensive miscues and turnovers that are concerning because San Jose has struggled in those areas in the past.
The Sharks desperately miss Paul Martin on the back end as he’s been a steadying presence at even strength and on the penalty kill. It’s no coincidence that in the two games Martin has missed, San Jose has allowed 10 of their 12 goals to date. That’s pretty staggering and show’s the impact Martin has made in his brief time in teal. Peter DeBoer has deemed Martin as day-to-day with a lower body injury and let’s hope he can be back in the lineup sooner rather than later.
San Jose returns home for big game against the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday night. The Sharks are suffering from the injury bug which has decimated this team’s depth. Logan Couture, Joonas Donskoi, Ben Smith and the aforementioned Martin were all out for this one and might be again come Thursday night.
This was one bad game out of 82 for the year, but the Sharks need to re-establish their identity come Thursday night to ensure this losing streak ends.
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