TANK RUNS DRY
Late goals sink exhausted Sharks in loss to Leafs on Marleau’s big night
TORONTO >> Playing their third game in four nights and once again having to kill one penalty after another, the Sharks simply had nothing left for the third period of Friday’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Sharks allowed three goals in the final 20 minutes, including the game-winner to Morgan Rielly with 5:29 left in a 4-1 loss at Scotiabank Arena, putting a damper on Patrick Marleau’s return to Toronto in what was his 1,500th game in a San Jose uniform.
Martin Jones finished with 25 saves and Kevin Labanc scored the only goal for the Sharks, who fell to 1-1-1 on their five-game trip that continues Sunday against the
Ottawa Senators.
The Sharks managed just 10 shots on goal in the first two periods and finished with a seasonlow 17 for the game.
“I don’t think we got in their end enough to shoot the puck,” Sharks captain Logan Couture said. “We didn’t have much. We didn’t have the puck in their end very often, especially in the third period.”
Part of that might have been due to fatigue after they beat the Canadiens in Montreal on Thursday and didn’t get to their hotel until 1:30 a.m. on Friday. The Sharks also played in Buffalo on
Tuesday and lost 4-3 in overtime.
Further exasperating matters, though, were the five penalties the Sharks had to kill, including delay of game calls on Timo Meier and Melker Karlsson in the third period. The Sharks entered Friday No. 1 in the NHL in penalty kill percentage at 91.4.
But they’ve been in the box a ton lately, having to kill 19 penalties over the past five games before Friday.
“When you’re killing and you’re killing and you’re killing, you’re exerting a lot of energy in the ice,” Couture said, “and then you’re going back out there to try and create some offense, and then you’re killing again. It’s difficult.
“Some of those penalties were tough ones to take. Some of them I didn’t agree with. We killed it, but we need to do a better job.”
Jones stopped the first 16 shots he faced but couldn’t do anything on Jake Muzzin’s goal with 1.9 seconds left in the second period that tied the game.
Leafs forward Jason Spezza retrieved a puck in the corner to the right of Jones and fired it back toward the net. Jones got a pad on it but went to an open Muzzin, who tapped it in for his second goal of the season.
The Sharks had just three shots on net in the second period as they had to kill off back-to-back minor penalties to Mario Ferraro and Barclay Goodrow.
“We needed to do a few things (to win), and one of them was stay out of the penalty box,” Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said. “Little bit of a tired team and we took five minors. It’s hard. I thought we ran out of gas in the third killing all of those penalties.”
The Sharks took a 1-0 lead at the 10:35 mark of the first, as Labanc tipped a point shot from Brent Burns past Leafs goalie Frederik Andersen for his fourth goal of the season and his sixth point in seven games.
Marleau was held off the score sheet for the third time in seven games since his return. Still, with his appearance, he became just the seventh player in NHL history to play 1,500 games with the same franchise.
Marleau, who played two seasons in a Toronto uniform from 2017-19, was given a warm reception by Leafs fans after a first-period video tribute during a television timeout. Marleau, who was in the starting lineup with Brent Burns, Ferraro, Couture and Joe Thornton, acknowledged everyone in attendance from the bench.
Friday morning, Leafs coaches and players expressed their gratitude for Marleau and the example he set for a relatively young Maple Leafs roster. Toronto coach Mike Babcock was also effusive in his praise but added, “His goal is to break Gordie’s record. I wish him luck with that.”
Marleau, drafted second overall in 1997 by the Sharks, played his 1,664th NHL game Friday and is fifth on the all-time games played list. Howe, known as “Mr. Hockey” and the game’s greatest player before the arrival of Wayne Gretzky, finished with 1,767 games played from 194680, still an NHL record.
Even though the Sharks had the morning off Friday, that remark caught the attention of Marleau. He responded via social media hours later, saying, “Quick comment regarding Babcock’s statement: I don’t think anyone can set out to break a games played record. There are so many things that can happen, and that is not my goal. My one and only goal is to win a Cup. That’s it. Anything else is just gravy. -PM.”
“Every conversation I’ve had with Patty Marleau wasn’t about breaking records,” DeBoer said before the game, “it was about coming back and helping us win a Stanley Cup.”