Road trip stalls with flat effort at Tire Centre
KANATA, ONTARIO >> The Sharks over the last few games — even though they didn’t always get the result they wanted — could usually say afterward that there were at least a positives they could build on going forward.
Then they arrived at the Canadian Tire Centre on Sunday, and it appeared they had learned almost nothing at all.
The Sharks fell behind by two goals late in the first period and never fully recovered in a dismal 5-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators, the team that was thought to be the
most beatable when this road trip against Atlantic Division opponents began.
Evander Kane and Kevin Labanc both scored, but the Senators scored four times in their first 22 shots as Sharks backup goalie Aaron Dell struggled in his second start in three games.
Dell was pulled in favor of Martin Jones to start the third period, as the Sharks (4-7-1) fell to 1-2-1 on their five-game road trip that concludes Tuesday in Boston.
“We found ourselves in a hole and then I didn’t think we handled it well from there,” Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said. “It’s hard playing from behind. We started to open up and push too hard, and it comes back down you’re throat and that’s what happened tonight.”
Erik Karlsson’s second trip to Ottawa as a member of the Sharks wasn’t any prettier than his first visit last season.
Less than three months after he was acquired by the Sharks from the Senators, Karlsson returned to Ottawa on Dec. 1 of last year when he and his teammates were throttled 6-2. Karlsson finished without a point.
Sunday, Karlsson was again held off the scoresheet and was on the ice for all five Senators goals as he and defense partner Brenden Dillon each finished with a minus-4 rating.
“It wasn’t just Erik. It was our whole team,” Sharks captain Logan Couture. “You can’t pin that on one guy. He tried his hardest. He was creating offensively. We didn’t do a good enough job supporting him all over the ice and giving him outs. Definitely can’t blame it on him, no.”
Karlsson, though, is now minus-11 in 11 games this season, second-worst in the NHL behind Detroit’s Andreas Athanasiou.
Labanc and Tomas Hertl are both minus-10 and Marc-Edouard Vlasic is minus-9.
“We’re 12 games in and there’s a handful of key guys for us that haven’t played well,” DeBoer said. “That’s on me to get them back to the level they need to be at. I don’t mean guys on the stat sheet or guys with almost a point a game or a point a game. If you’re minus 8 or 10, you’re not winning hockey games like that.”
“I don’t think that anyone is pleased with the way that we played tonight,” Karlsson said. “It’s not a representation of this organization and this team. It’s definitely not one of the better ones that we’ve had, and not what we needed right now.”
After the blowout loss to the Senators last year, the Sharks were able to get on the same page, win seven of their next eight and save their season. Can Sunday’s ugly loss serve as another turning point?
“It’s been two pretty rock bottom nights the last two (years) here,” DeBoer said. “The good thing is we got off the mat and we’ve got to do the same this year.”
Nick Paul scored twice and Connor Brown, Brady Tkachuk and Anthony Duclair each added one as the Senators improved to 3-7-1.
“I think when you’re losing many games it’s definitely execution,” Couture said. “I don’t think guys are going out there not trying, I think guys are trying as hard as they can, giving it everything we can. It’s just mistakes, executing, mental mistakes.”