Penalties kill efforts to build momentum
Players not happy with some of officials’ calls
SAN JOSE >> There isn’t much suspense left in the Sharks’ season, not with the team entering Tuesday in 14th place in the Western Conference and 11 points out of a playoff spot.
Perhaps the only mystery is how active general manager Doug Wilson will be between now and the Feb. 24 NHL trade deadline.
So it comes down to how the Sharks perform in individual games, how detailed and how structured they’ll play as they try to build some positive habits and the type of identity they’ll need for the start of next season.
By in large, they’ve made some strides in those areas recently, even without Logan Couture and Tomas Hertl.
So it was especially baffling to witness the first 10 minutes of Monday’s game with the Calgary Flames.
The Sharks finally found some energy after Erik Karlsson scored to cut the Flames’ lead to two goals. Brent Burns cut the deficit to one with a power play goal at the 4:51 mark of the second, but Mark Jankowski’s goal roughly six minutes later halted any momentum and paved the way for a 6-2 Flames win at SAP Center.
“The message after first period was that we didn’t compete,” Sharks interim coach Bob Boughner said. “We’ve said all along that we have to be a detailed, structured team to give ourselves a chance. I don’t think we were detailed or structured, especially in the first 10 minutes.
“With that comes compete and battle. Once we started to do that in the second period, I felt good about our chances. Down 3-2, I thought we were coming. The fourth goal is a little bit of
a back-breaker. It felt every time tonight we got some momentum, we took a penalty.”
Other takeaways from Monday night:
(SOFT) PENALTIES DOOM SHARKS >> The Sharks were shorthanded six times Monday night and gave up power play goals to Milan Lucic in the first period and to Matthew Tkachuk and Mikael Backlund in the third period.
Let’s just say the Sharks didn’t like some of the calls that were made.
Brenden Dillon was called for slashing in the first period when he brought his stick down on Dillon Dube’s stick, causing it to fall to the ice (although it didn’t break). That led to Lucic’s goal at the 4:05 mark.
Tkachuk then went down kind of easy early in the third period, as Dillon was called for tripping. Johnny Gaudreau might have also sold a call later in the third period as Timo Meier was sent also off for tripping.
The Sharks didn’t like it, of course, and their frustration boiled over as Stefan Noesen was given a 10-minute misconduct for chirping at the officials after Evander Kane was whistled for, you guessed it, tripping Tkachuk.
“I laughed at (the official),” Noesen said. “Straight up.”
Tkachuk scored a pretty goal at the 1:26 mark of the third period with Dillon in the box, and Mikael Backlund scored at the 14:08 mark with Kane and Meier sitting down.
“I thought the same guys are going down very easy, and it’s unfortunate because those are situations where you can call both guys,” Boughner said.
“Didn’t happen, but not the reason we lost. I really think, more than anything, it was just chasing the game all night.”
“We were getting frustrated,” Patrick Marleau said. “Sticks are there and guys falling down on the other side. Makes it look bad. Makes it hard on the refs to make calls. Hopefully we can get some of those calls going our way.” STANDING UP TO LUCIC >> Mario Ferraro had to go the dressing room for a short while after he was crunched into the boards by Lucic in last week’s game between the Sharks and Flames. Ferraro later returned.
Monday, the same thing happened as Lucic hit Ferraro face first into the boards as Ferraro went back to play a puck. Ferraro was OK, as he raised his arms looking for a call right after the hit. Noesen then went right after Lucic and dropped the gloves with the Flames’ big man.
Noesen got a double minor for roughing. Lucic got two minutes for roughing.
“That’s back-to-back games he’s had the exact same hit, same player, same everything,” Noesen said of Lucic. “Something’s got to change. You can’t let that guy do that every single time. Luckily, Mario didn’t get hurt this time. Last time he had a bloody eye.
“If (Ferraro) goes down and he’s laying on the ice, it’s probably going to be a suspension. But the fact that he got up right away, they’re not going to call anything like that. To me, that’s (bull).”
“We talked about sticking up for each other and playing as a family,” Boughner said. “Physically I thought we were engaged all night. The emotion was there, but it was one of those games where we were behind the play and every mistake we made went bad.”
NHL standings