San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Offense sizzles, defense fizzles
The Sharks lost Tomas Hertl to the NHL’s COVID19 protocol list, welcomed three healthy regulars back yet stubbed their toe big time Saturday night.
San Jose wasted two goals each from Evander Kane and Timo Meier when it surrendered three in the third period to the St. Louis Blues, who broke a threegame losing streak with a 76 win at SAP Center.
“That one is on us,” Sharks coach Bob Boughner said. “I think we gave up 13 chances and seven of them are in the back of our net. You’re not going to win many hockey games like that.”
As soon as the Sharks slipped on those classic heritage jerseys for the first time they instantly reverted back to 199293. The modernday Sharks looked more like that 11712 secondyear version against St. Louis.
“It’s tough to score six goals in this league, and when you do at home you expect to win,” Boughner said.
Goalie Devan Dubnyk struggled, allowing seven goals on 31 shots, to fall to 141.
“A strange game to say the least,” Dubnyk said.
“It’s not for a lack of effort on his part, I know that,” Boughner added. “We gave him a chance to battle through it in the third, but it didn’t work out.”
The Sharks let four onegoal leads slip away in the first two periods before the Blues went ahead 54 on Mackenzie MacEachern’s shorthanded goal at 1:18 of the third period. Kevin Labanc answered for San Jose 55 seconds later with his third of the season to tie it.
But Ryan O’Reilly slid his seventh of the season under Dubnyk’s pads at 3:20 to make it 65. Just 3:01 later Logan Couture scored his 11th by redirecting a Brent Burns drive past St. Louis backup goalie Ville Hasso, who relieved Jordan Binnington midway through the second period.
Finally, Marco Scandella scored his second of the game and season at 7:14 to make it 76 Blues.
“We had some chances to extend the lead,” Kane said. “We gave them too many pucks, too many opportunities to come back against us.”
Erik Karlsson made a quickerthanexpected return from a groin injury to join fellow defenseman Radim Simek on the ice for the first time in five games. And youngster Dylan Gambrell continued his upward trend by filling Hertl’s big skates as secondline center a week after sustaining a head injury against the Blues.
The Sharks were playing for the first time since Monday’s opening game of what was supposed to be an eightgame homestand. When Hertl tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday, a game against Vegas set for Thursday was postponed. Hertl is expected to miss 14 days.
“It’s a wakeup call because it hits home when it’s in your inner circle,” Boughner said of Hertl.
The Sharks were looking at putting six or seven rookies into Saturday’s lineup before good fortune struck with the return of Karlsson, Simek and Gambrell. Karlsson went from weektoweek four days earlier to playing 20:53 against the Blues.
“I thought he looked fine, he was moving well and moved the puck well,” Boughner said.