Tough breaks for Sharks
Playoff series against Oilers turned on a handful of plays
SAN JOSE — It never felt like the Sharks were out of their first-round playoff series with the Edmonton Oilers. It never felt like they were in command, either.
That’s because the series, which ended Saturday with a 3-1 loss that sent the Sharks into the off-season, came down to only a handful of plays.
Saturday night, Edmonton got goals from Leon Draisaitl and Anton Slepyshev off uncommon sequences with the Sharks on the attack. In Game 5, it was Oscar Klefbom scoring with 2:46 left to send the game into overtime, where the Oilers won. In Game 3, Zack Kassian capitalized on a David Schlemko turnover and beat Martin Jones for the only goal of the game.
“The two that sting are the 1-0 game here in Game 3. That’s a game that I really felt we should have won, that’s a momentum-turning game,” Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said Saturday night.
“And obviously Game 5 in Edmonton with the lead with two minutes left. If you’re going to beat a really good team, you’ve got to seize those moments and we were unable to.”
The Sharks had their moments as well, with Melker Karlsson’s overtime goal in Game 1 and Jones’ heroics in overtime of Game 5 standing out.
Still, there weren’t enough of them to pull out a series win.
“It’s a series ... we lose and you don’t know how you lost at times. Game 2, we just didn’t have it,” Sharks captain Joe Pavelski said of the second game when they went 0 for 6 on the power play. “A turnover on my part, double-clutch, it gives them the lead.
“There’s just moments. There’s nothing you can say or point a finger at. Nothing but respect for these guys in here and the way they competed.”
The deck was stacked against the Sharks with Logan Couture playing though major injuries to his mouth, and Joe Thornton effectively skating on one leg.
There were other, muchless publicized injuries, too.
“That’s just the way hockey is,” Thornton said. “Sometimes you just get on that roll and this year, the injury bug kind of hit us and kind of hurt us. But no excuses. They played a great series and hats off to them.”
DeBoer said a big key to the Sharks’ playoff run last season was the amount of offensive production the supporting cast was able to provide.
Joonas Donskoi had two game-winning goals in 2016. Joel Ward, Tommy Wingels, Tomas Hertl and Karlsson each had one, complementing the top players such as Couture and Pavelski, who combined for six game-winners.
It never materialized the same way for the Sharks against the Oilers, as DeBoer tweaked his lines throughout the series to try and get something going.
Throwing out Game 4, a 7-0 Sharks rout, Ward and Mikkel Boedker each had a goal and an assist, Donskoi had two assists and Hertl, Jannik Hansen and Chris Tierney each had one assist in six games.
The Oilers had their offensive struggles as well, as the Sharks held them to 12 goals for the series. A few timely ones made the difference.
Saturday’s game was a prime example.
Karlsson was robbed point-blank by Oilers goalie Cam Talbot in the first period while the Sharks were short-handed and the game was still scoreless.
Early in the third period, Hansen could not finish a chance in front of the net after a nice pass from Tierney. Moments later, Ward’s shot got past Talbot but went off the post.
Late in the third period with the Sharks down 2-1, Pavelski took a pass from Thornton just a few feet away from the Oilers crease. He backhanded a shot that went over Talbot’s right shoulder, hit the crossbar, then went off the post before the puck was cleared.
“You need things to go right at times, you need some key goals in moments,” Pavelski said, “it didn’t go for us this time.”