Couture returns, but Sharks still take a beating
Couture returns, but they lay an egg against Stars
DALLAS >> The new year couldn’t have come faster for the Sharks.
The Sharks said goodbye to 2017 in the most forgettable of ways Sunday, opening a five-game trip with their worst loss of the season.
Here’s what we learned as the Dallas Stars (22-15-3) dismantled the Sharks (2012-4) 6-0 on New Year’s Eve. 1. THE SHARKS LAY AN EGG, MAYBE TWO, IN THEIR BLOWOUT LOSS >> In his first season as the Sharks head coach, Pete DeBoer acknowledged after a particularly dreadful loss to the Calgary Flames that even the best teams will lay three or four eggs at some point during an 82-game regular season. Losses that are so ugly, so uncharacteristic they defy explanation.
“That might count as two (eggs),” DeBoer said following the Sharks blowout loss in Texas.
After battling, clawing and scraping their way to a 3-1 record in Logan Couture’s absence, the Sharks came out flat as their top goal scorer’s returned to action, getting pinned in their zone early, outshot 17-5 in the first period and outscored 2-0 where it counts.
The two-goal deficit turned to four before the midway point of the second and six with 8:05 remaining in the third.
“We didn’t play well,” defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic said. “It wasn’t necessarily breakouts, forechecking; it wasn’t really Xs and Os. It was more being hard on the puck, making plays, making passes. Stuff that you should be able to do on a nightly basis.”
The Sharks did all that stuff while Couture was sidelined by a concussion. It’s possible that the team experienced a natural letdown knowing that the player who Edmonton Oilers head coach Todd McLellan referred to as “their Connor (McDavid)” would finally be back in the mix.
“The bottom line is they worked and earned a win tonight and we didn’t,” DeBoer
said. “This is the NHL, you can’t use that (Couture’s return) as an excuse. You’ve got to show up. It’s a good lesson: if you don’t show up to work in this league, in any building, you’re not going to have results.”
Vlasic isn’t buying into the suggestion that Couture’s return deflated the urgency that his team played with in his absence.
“If he was in the lineup or wasn’t in the lineup, we still would have played the same way,” the Sharks defenseman said. “If guys don’t show up it doesn’t matter who’s in the lineup.”
Couture is less concerned about why the Sharks laid an egg than how they’re going to perform in their next outing against the Montreal Canadiens in Canada on Tuesday.
“It’s all about how you respond,” he said. “It just makes that next game that much bigger.”
2. COUTURE ADMITS TO “ANXIOUSNESS” IN HIS RETURN FROM A CONCUSSION >> As a guy who hosted a charity event last summer to raise money for concussion research, Couture knows the long-term health risks associated with head trauma in sports.
With that in mind, it shouldn’t be surprising that he experienced some anxiety prior to his return from a concussion suffered in Vancouver
on Dec. 15.
“There’s always doubt, there’s always anxiousness,” Couture said. “A lot of times when you’re going to sleep at night and you’re dealing with this injury, you’re always doubting yourself and you’re always doubting coming back from it.
“Thinking of the worst just comes with the territory.”
Couture said he started to feel comfortable on the ice after he got through the Sharks miserable first period.
The 28-year-old center decided he would suit up Sunday after he went roughly an hour after the Sharks morning skate without experiencing any concussion setbacks. He skated for 15:16, recorded two shots on goal and hit the post on a Sharks power play in the second.
But Couture acknowledged that he was fighting rust in his first game in 16 days.
“My legs weren’t there; timing and everything was off,” Couture said. “I didn’t play very well, but I’m back. I made it through the game and I’m ready for the next one.”
3. TOMAS HERTL REUNION WITH JOE THORNTON AND JOE PAVELSKI IS SHORTLIVED >> After shuffling through five different left wingers on the ThorntonPavelski line through the first 35 games of the season, DeBoer returned to the top line combination that propelled the Sharks to the Stanley Cup Final in 2015-16.
But Hertl’s reunion tour with Thornton and Pavelski lasted less than 12 minutes.
At 11:58 of the first, DeBoer put Hertl back on the second line, giving Couture’s line some help as he struggled through the opening frame.
The line also needed Hertl in the faceoff circle. Hertl is 51.1 percent off the draw this season to Couture’s 41.1 percent.
“I wanted to give him (Couture) a little support, especially in the faceoff circle, first game back,” DeBoer said. “That was my thinking there.”
In other words, the HertlThornton-Pavelski show could still be coming to an arena near you in the future.