Winnipeg Jets center Gabriel Vilardi, top, celebrates with left wing Alex Iafallo (9) and center Mark Scheifele (55) after scoring against San Jose Sharks goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood during the third period of an NHL hockey game in San Jose, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
SAN JOSE – The San Jose Sharks can point to a handful of areas that need improvement as they carry a double-digit long losing streak – their second of the season — into Saturday’s game with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Special teams must be at or near the top of that list.
The Sharks played the Western Conference-leading Winnipeg Jets even for two-plus periods Thursday before they allowed a power play goal to Gabriel Vilardi early in the third period. That proved to be the difference as the Sharks lost 2-1 to the Jets before an announced crowd of 10,521 at SAP Center.
The Sharks are now 23 of 31 on the penalty kill on a 10-game losing streak on which they haven’t picked up a single point. The last time that happened was 31 years ago when the Sharks were based at the Cow Palace in Daly City and lost 17 straight games from Jan. 4 to Feb. 12, 1993, without so much as a tie.
“We’ve just got to be more detailed in our execution,” Sharks coach David Quinn said of the penalty kills. “Bottom line is (assistant coach Ryan Warsofsky) does a hell of a job preparing them.
“Everything we talk about is laid out. Our execution just isn’t what it needs to be right now.”
Vilardi’s goal bore some resemblance to the power play goal the Detroit Red Wings scored on Tuesday when a Sharks player was out of position. That allowed a seam pass from Daniel Sprong to get through to David Perron, who one-timed the puck past Kaapo Kahkonen to tie the game 3-3. Detroit won 5-3.
Thursday, with Filip Zadina serving a hooking penalty, it was Nikolaj Ehlers who sent the seam pass to an open Vilardi, who tapped it past Sharks goalie Mackenzie Blackwood. The Jets snapped it around inside the Sharks’ zone before they spotted an opportunity.
“When we go places sometimes on the PK it’s not fast enough, and then when the puck moves, we don’t recover quick enough,” Quinn said. “On the winning goal, we just came out of the corner and went to the wrong guy.
“We had two guys covering the bumper guy and the guy who should have covered the guy on the back door didn’t.”
The Sharks now face a Leafs team that has some of the most skilled forwards in the NHL, and whose power play ranks eighth in the league at 24.6 percent. San Jose’s penalty kill ranked 28th in the league at 72.9 percent before Friday’s games.
“I think we’re all at fault,” Sharks forward Luke Kunin said. “Whether it seams, whether it’s the bumper, whether it’s missing clears, it’s an area of the game that’s hurting us right now.
“All the killers definitely take a lot of pride in it. So, it’s on us to fix it.”
Blackwood was solid as he made 28 saves, including nine in the first seven minutes when he and the Sharks were under siege. Still, with the power play now 1-for-17 in the last seven games and a combined 15 goals scored during this skid, it almost feels like the Sharks have to play a perfect game, at least from a defensive standpoint, to pick up two points again.
Does it feel that way to the Sharks?
“Yeah, sometimes it feels like that,” Sharks defenseman Ty Emberson said. “Hockey’s a frustrating game. It’s a game of bounces and sometimes we just haven’t been getting the bounces. But I think if we keep working hard, we’ll earn those bounces at some point.”
“We just played the best team in the Western Conference right now,” Quinn said. “It was a toe-to-toe game. The first 15 minutes were not good and after that, (the Jets) had six scoring chances five on five.
“Our guys are competing their asses off. They keep plugging away. We’re going get out of this. It’s been a bear of a schedule and we’re playing Los Gatos High. But we’ll come back tomorrow and whether we’ve got to play perfect or not, I don’t know. I just know we’re going keep playing better.”
The Sharks went 0-10-1 to start the year. The last season they had two losing streaks of nine or more games was 1993-94.
“If you look at the last three games, it’s (close) games, right? So we’re there. We’re close,” said Blackwood, noting San Jose’s 3-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Dec. 31. “It’s just about finishing the job.”
Originally published at Curtis Pashelka