San Jose Sharks Fall Flat Against The Lowly Blue Jackets
Well, so much for momentum.
The San Jose Sharks returned home after back-to-back games against Dallas and Colorado, looking to put together a winning streak for the first time since the Sharks rattled off four-straight games at the beginning of the year. San Jose seemed to have the perfect opponent coming to town as the struggling Columbus Blue Jackets, winners of just two of their first 12 games, visited SAP Center.
Unfortunately, San Jose reverted to their old ways of playing down to their competition’s level as Columbus used two goals just 29 seconds apart within the last two minutes of the second period to pull away from the Sharks and take home a 5-2 victory. Columbus continued their domination over San Jose of late, registering their third straight victory over the Sharks and improving to 7-1-1 in their last nine meetings.
It was an ugly performance from San Jose who dominated on the shot clock, outshooting Columbus 43-24 on the night, but the Sharks were sloppy in their own end all night long. Also, this was by far the worst outing for Martin Jones in San Jose as he looked off all night. The last three goals allowed were all bad goals to give up and one resulted from a turnover by Jones behind the net. His night was cut short as he was replaced by Alex Stalock to begin the third period.
It’s never a good sign when the only real positives were the reception to the Heritage Jerseys, a throwback to San Jose’s original uniforms, which were indeed fantastic.
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The lone bright spot on the ice was the play of the top line as Joe Pavelski took over the scoring lead from Joel Ward with a pair of goals, each time evening the score at that point in the game. Joonas Donskoi had a very strong game as his effort and back check directly led to Pavelski’s second goal when he was alone in front.
Other than that, there wasn’t much to write home about in this one from a San Jose perspective. Their power play continues to come up empty at critical moments as the Sharks went 0-for-4 on this night. Even more astounding, San Jose has yet to score a power play goal at home this season, dropping to 0-of-13 with the man advantage at SAP Center. Simply unacceptable.
Another alarming trend continued in this one as the Sharks allowed the opposition to score first for the fourth straight game. That can’t happen for a team that’s relying too heavily on their top scorers at the moment. San Jose needs more from their entire lineup from the defense to the depth guys who must step up and start contributing more frequently.
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It’s back to the drawing board for Peter DeBoer and this Sharks team. Sitting at 6-6-0 through the first 12 games, it’s time for this San Jose team to find some sort of identity. Right now, the only thing to expect from the Sharks is that they are consistently inconsistent, and that’s not a recipe to make the playoffs.
San Jose has three more games left on this home stand, and they must bank these critical points. It all starts with another test of this Sharks group against the Florida Panthers tomorrow night.