Collapse reaches six straight
Trip couldn’t end soon enough for San Jose as defense gets pummeled
NASHVILLE — San Jose’s Micheal Haley leveled Calle Jarnkrok late in the third period with a left hand that ended both players’ nights. Haley was gone with a match penalty. Jarnkrok, who had hit Haley from behind a few seconds earlier, was hurt and didn’t return to the game.
The Sharks’ worst trip in nearly a quarter-century came to a merciful and ferocious end Saturday, as the Nashville Predators took advantage of nearly every opportunity they were afforded by a leaky San Jose defense to skate away with 7-2 win at Bridgestone Arena.
The Sharks have lost six straight games in regulation time, and return to San Jose after a trip in which they were outscored 17-5.
If this isn’t rock bottom for a Sharks team that has Stanley Cup aspirations, they can certainly see it from here.
“I think it’s just a reality check. A gut-check time,” Sharks captain Joe Pavelski said. “It’s on us as players. Bottom line is we haven’t put the effort in that we need to have right now, and it snowballed on us a little bit at times.
“I think we’ve got to take a deep breath, and really take a look in the mirror, refocus a little bit and understand there’s hockey out there but it’s not going to fix itself. It’s going to take a group effort.”
The last time the Sharks lost all four, or more, games on
a trip in regulation time was in March 1993, their second season as a franchise, when they lost six straight.
The Sharks remained tied for first place in the Pacific Division, but now it’s a three-way tie after Edmonton beat Colorado late Saturday. The Sharks, Ducks and Oilers all have 91 points. Fourth-place Calgary has 88 points.
The Sharks return home for one game, on Tuesday against the New York Rangers, before they head out on a trip to face Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.
The Sharks can still finish anywhere from first to fourth in the division. But the time they have to straighten things out before the start of the playoffs is quickly evaporating.
“You don’t want it to happen anytime,” Sharks defenseman Brent Burns said. “Right now we should be just tightening up everything. You’ve still got to fight, you’re fighting for your lives. We’ve got figure it out pretty soon.”
Of immediate concern for the Sharks is the health of Logan Couture, who was struck in the face by a deflected puck, left the game immediately and was later taken to a hospital.
A shot from inside the blue line by Burns went off the blade of Marleau’s stick and into the face of Couture, who fell to the ice. He then got up, quickly skated to the Sharks’ bench and walked to the dressing room. The play happened with 13.9 seconds left in the second period with the Sharks trailing 4-2.
Couture is third on the Sharks this season with 52 points in 72 games. He is fourth on the team with 25 goals.
“You can’t replace him, so it would be really tough,” Marleau said when asked when asked how damaging it would be to lose Couture for any time. “But if that is the case, then guys are going to have to pull up the slack. Definitely we hope he’s back soon.”
Per NHL rules, Haley, by receiving a match penalty, will be suspended until the matter can be reviewed by the commissioner’s office.
As Haley was playing the puck along the boards inside the Sharks’ zone, Jarnkrok moved in and put his shoulder into Haley, who was knocked face-first into the glass. Haley got up a second later and made a beeline for Jarnkrok, grabbed him and decked him with a punch to the nose.
Haley was ejected with a 10-minute match penalty and a bleeding Jarnkrok was given two minutes for boarding.
Asked if that was frustration boiling over, Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said, “Well, when you run someone from behind in a game like that, you probably deserve to get a punch in the mouth.”
“It’s an ugly play,” Predators coach Peter Laviolette said. “This isn’t the wild, wild west. I mean, Calle hit him. We took a penalty. If we start doing that, we’re in trouble, so hopefully it gets looked at.”
Marleau and Justin Braun both scored for the Sharks, who were coming off a 6-1 loss to the Dallas Stars on Saturday.
“I liked our game tonight better than I liked yesterday’s game, regardless of the score,” DeBoer said. “I don’t just look at the score. If you want to just judge it on the score then you might not say it’s a wake-up call, but I thought we were much more competitive tonight. It was a step in the right direction.”
The Sharks were without defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic and center Chris Tierney. Vlasic was ill, according to the Sharks, and Tierney has an upperbody injury.
“Every team goes through tough parts of the season, and this is ours,” DeBoer said. “We’ve got a lot of character in the room. We’ll get through it.”