Early goal sets tone in San Jose’s loss
DENVER — After tightening up their defense last week in consecutive wins in which they allowed a total of two goals, things haven’t gone as well defensively for the Sharks this week.
After allowing six goals in a loss at Arizona on Tuesday, San Jose struggled again Thursday, this time falling to the Colorado Avalanche 40.
Things went bad early for the Sharks at Pepsi Center — Valeri Nichushkin scored in the first minute of the game — and didn’t improve much the rest of the way. In the end, Philipp Grubauer had recorded 27 saves for his first shutout of the season and four players had scored as San Jose fell to 8133 on the road.
After Nichushkin beat goalie Martin Jones with a shot 45 seconds into the contest, Colorado doubled its lead on Cale Makar’s goal with 2.8 seconds left in the first period. Ryan Graves and Matt Calvert also scored in the second period to help the Avalanche end a fourgame regularseason losing streak against the Sharks.
“It was another game where it wasn’t a very good start,” Sharks coach Bob Boughner said. “We gave up a goal early, we got burned on the outside. You give one up in the first two minutes, you give one up in the last 10 seconds. That’s a recipe for disaster against a team like this.”
After Nichushkin beat Jones from close range to start the scoring, Makar’s goal came on a slap shot off a faceoff win by Nazem Kadri. It was the rookie defenseman’s 10th goal of the season.
“That was too bad, an unlucky bounce there,” Jones said. “It put us in a tough spot, but we weren’t out of the game by any means. We could have come out and had a strong second. We just didn’t.”
Graves made it 30 when he scored off another faceoff win at 9:59 of the second period, and 2:43 later Calvert scored a shorthanded goal to give Colorado a fourgoal lead with his 12th of the season.
“We didn’t skate tonight and they are a skating team,“San Jose forward Evander Kane said. “And if you’re not ready to skate it’s going to be tough to beat these guys, because they like to break out quick and get the puck in their forwards’ hands.”
Briefly: Sharks center Joe Thornton tied Larry Murphy for 10th place in games played with 1,615. … Former Sharks wing Joonas Donskoi, who is in concussion protocol, missed his third straight game for Colorado.