Good teams find ways to win and bad teams find
ways to lose. Holding a 3rd period lead against arguably the best team in the
NHL in the Winnipeg Jets, the Sharks couldn't hold the fort, as their guests
scored a pair of 3rd period to fall 4-3 on Tuesday night. The Sharks played one
of their more complete games of the season, but the Jets and their record that
tops the NHL found a way to win.
Tyler Toffoli put it best in his post
game comments.
"We should have won," said the Sharks veteran forward.
The matter of fact quote is something that Sharks could apply to a few games
this season, but this one stings because it looked as if they were going to
earn 2 points.
Perhaps in a year or two, the Sharks will have learned
how to preserve tight leads against good teams. Nobody in the San Jose locker
room cares about moral victories, so what matters is how they respond to
outcomes like this one.
The impression that head coach Ryan Warsofsky
has brought to the club is that they will move forward and pack this one into
the memory bank.
The Sharks played an up tempo opening period and
out-shot the Jets 8-4 through the first 12 minutes of play, but they got caught
in an odd-man rush that ended with Mark Schiefele feeding Kyle Connor for an
easy deposit past sharks goaltender Alexandar Georgiev.
San Jose tried
to throw as many pucks as they could muster at Connor Hellebuyck, but the
majority of them came from long range, low percentage vantage points. They
would reach the intermission with a 10-9 advantage in shots, but the Jets held
the 1-0 lead.
Tyler Toffoli drew the Sharks even 1:52 into the 2nd
period by one-timing a shot from 15-feet out after Nikolai Kovalenko put the
puck out in front of the net with a pass from the end boards. Macklin Celebrini
beat a Jets defender to the puck in the right corner to earn the secondary
assist.
The Sharks committed a mortal sin when they took a penalty
against the NHL's top power play. Shakir Mukhamadullin was sent off for holding
and the Jets went to work. Gabriel Vilardi moved the puck to Cole Perfetti who
deftly sent it to Scheifele for the quick deposit. The goal was Scheifele's
17th of the season and helped Winnipeg reclaim the lead at 2-1.
A
Colin Miller tripping penalty on Celebrin helped the Sharks draw even once
again. Celebrini used an Alexander Wennberg screen on Hellebuyck, flipping a
no-look backhand shot toward the net. The shot split Wennberg's skates and
Hellebuyck's pads for Celebrini's 11th goal of the season.
Fabian Zetterlund staked the Sharks to their first
lead of the night at 4:44 of the 3rd period. Jake Walman flipped the puck out
of the Sharks zone to Zetterlund who skated up the right wing. With a 2-on-1
chance materializing, Zetterlund elected to shoot the puck. That turned out to
be the right decision as the puck sailed over Hellebuyck's left shoulder.
Winnipeg tried pulling a card out f Utah's bag of tricks by harassing
Celebrini with the clock runing under 10 minutes to play. The Sharks stood up
for their budding superstar, but things got dicey two minutes later when Alex
Wennberg was called for tripping, putting the lethal Jets power play back on
the ice.
Once again, the Jets converted quickly. Connor added his 19th
of the season with a snipe from the left side to draw the game back to 3-3.
Nino Niederreiter was sent off for an illegal check to the head of
Luke Kunin at 13:40, but the Sharks would not capitalize on the ensuing
man-advantage.
The air went out of the building with 73 seconds
remaining in regulation when former Sharks defenseman Dylan DeMelo threw a puck
at the net. The puck clipped Adam Lowry in flight, changing the trajectory and
sailing past Georgiev for the go-ahead goal.
It was a tough way to
lose, but a lesson that an up and coming team needs to experience in order to
get better.
Game Notes: * Jets winger Nikita Chibrikov
tried blocking a slap shot midway through the 1st period, but the puck hit him
on the inside of his right knee. The rookie hobbled to the bench but had to be
helped across the ice to get to the gate leading to the Jets locker room. He
made a miraculous recovery and returned to start the 2nd period and promptly
allowed Tyler Toffoli to score.
* Sharks backup goaltender Vitek
Vanecek was hit in the face with an errant puck as he sat on the bench in the
2nd period. He was taken to the locker room for treatment.
* The game
marked the 7th multi-point game for Macklin Celebrini, who passes Jeff Friesen
for the most in team history by an 18-year-old.
* Tyler Toffoli (1
goal, 1 assist) and Jake Walman (2 assists) joined Celebrini with multi-point
games.
* The game was also one of the stops on the Jets mom's road
trip.
