San Jose Sharks Glass Half-Full Or Half-Empty After Game 1

After coming up just short in Game 1 in St. Louis, how should San Jose feel about a missed opportunity to grab the early series lead?

For the fourth-straight occurrence, the San Jose Sharks dropped Game 1 during the Western Conference finals, this time falling 2-1 at the hands of the St. Louis Blues.

Coming out of this contest, it’s tough to know how to really feel about this game from a team teal perspective.

On the one hand, San Jose went toe-to-toe with the Blues in their own barn, outshooting the hosts 32-23, winning more than 57 percent of the faceoffs and completing dominating the second period.

However, the Sharks lost the special teams battle, an area they were thought to have an advantage, and had way too many giveaways including on the game-winning goal which has to be stopped.

So, where do things stand with San Jose following Game 1?

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Well, let’s start with the positives. Team teal did a lot of good things in this one as they didn’t allow St. Louis too many quality scoring chances. Even when they did make some mistakes, they were there to make up with them with some great back-checking efforts.

Also, the best line on the ice throughout the entire game was the trio of Joe Pavelski, Joe Thornton and Tomas Hertl. The top line combined for the only goal of the game just 32 seconds after St. Louis had taken a 1-0 lead. Pavelski made a great tip that bounced off Hertl’s skate and in past Brian Elliott.

For the night, the trio combined for 12 of the 32 shots on goal San Jose threw at Elliott, including seven alone by Pavelski. Speaking of the Sharks captain, he’s probably lamenting a few of the opportunities he had to tie the game where he just wasn’t able to hit his spot.

The good sign for San Jose moving forward is this line showed they could handle their business regardless of which line Ken Hitchcock threw out against them.

Similar to the first goal, another promising sign was the Sharks ability to respond after getting scored upon. San Jose came right back on both occasions and showed they won’t get down by conceding a goal in this series.

Now, let’s shift to the negatives. The Sharks were too sloppy in their own zone. Roman Polak and Brent Burns each struggled at different points, which directly led to prime scoring chances against.

Burns in the offensive zone: very good. Burns in the defensive zone: ehhhh, not so much.

His giveaway on the Blues game-winning goal was tough because St. Louis wasn’t generating much to that point in the game.

Speaking of that goal, Martin Jones has to stop that shot. That’s probably the most frustrating part is the Sharks created way more Grade-A chances but then St. Louis gets the game-winner from an innocent looking shot from the wing that sneaks through Jones in a period where they were simply dominated. That’s hockey for you.

The good news, Jones responded after that point and stoned a couple of quality chances to keep the deficit at one for team teal. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done.

Finally, the Sharks will need more from their second-line of Patrick Marleau, Logan Couture and Joonas Donskoi. The trio was probably the least-effective line of the night in white and that can’t happen.

Couture leads the playoffs in scoring with 17 points, but has to be around the puck more often in better scoring areas. To make matters worse, Couture was in the box when David Backes opened the scoring in this series.

Next: Sharks: Recapping The Week That Was For Team Teal

San Jose was good in Game 1, but good wasn’t enough to get the job done last night. Team teal has to bury their chances when they present themselves, otherwise, there could be many more frustrating nights in this series.

It isn’t time to panic just yet for the Sharks, but they have to match a confident Blues team that will also be better in Game 2. Let’s hope we don’t look back at this series and lament the missed opportunity San Jose let slip through their grasp in Game 1.

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