SAN JOSE – The San Jose Sharks took a step in the correct direction Saturday night after two disappointing performances earlier within the week.
It wasn't enough to stop the eleventh defeat within the last 13 games.
William Eklund scored his ninth goal of the season within the second period, however the Sharks were unable to generate further offense in a 3-1 loss to goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and the Minnesota Wild on the SAP Center.
The Sharks allowed equal goals to Marco Rossi in the primary period and Matt Boldy within the second period and were unable to recuperate. The Sharks also allowed a scoreless goal to Mats Zuccarello with 1:17 left in regulation, shortly after goaltender Yaroslav Askarov cleared the online, and fell to 2-3-0 this month after ending December 2-10 had. 1 data set.
“I thought we competed hard, worked hard and did some really good things,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “We did some good things and some things we need to do better.”
On Boldy's goal at 4:34 of the second period, Sharks rookie forward Will Smith didn’t get the puck deep after receiving a pass from Jake Walman. This prevented Henry Thrun from leaving the ice and left a big gap, as after losing the ball, Boldy burst into the Sharks' zone and fired a shot that beat goalie Yaroslav Askarov for his sixteenth goal of the season.
Fleury, who was probably starting his last game on the SAP Center after a 21-year NHL profession, was sensational at times with 28 saves in the primary two periods of the sport. The 40-year-old Fleury is anticipated to retire at the tip of the season, and never too soon for the Sharks, who’ve managed to beat the longer term Hall of Fame goalie just nine times in 29 games since 2003.
Fleury finished the sport with 36 saves and Askarov had 18 saves, dropping his record with the Sharks to 3-3-2 this season.
“We could have had a lot of chances today,” said Eklund. “I think we had a lot of first-class chances. We have to find a way to score more goals here. We haven’t done that recently.”
The Sharks, who lost to the Vegas Golden Knights and Utah Hockey Club, will now begin a five-game road trip starting with a game against the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday.
The Sharks were particularly unhappy with Friday's performance in Salt Lake City, as they tied a season-low 19 shots on goal and allowed a late goal after a defensive collapse in a 2-1 loss at Delta Center.
“We had no energy last night,” Warsofsky said Saturday morning, “so I hope we have a lot of energy tonight.”
The Sharks a minimum of moved more in the primary period than they did on Friday, firing 16 shots at Fleury, but were still down 1-0 after 20 minutes.
Less than six minutes into the primary period, the Wild managed to interrupt the puck cleanly out of their very own zone when Boldy fired it past a pinching Jan Rutta. Mats Zuccarello controlled the puck and moved it into the Sharks' zone before making a pass to a charging Rossi, who had beaten Eklund up the ice.
Rossi then switched from forehand to backhand and beat Askarov for his sixteenth goal of the season at 5:51 of the primary period.
The newly formed line of Eklund, Tyler Toffoli and Macklin Celebrini combined for 3 shots on goal and a couple of scoring opportunities in the primary period. Toffoli particularly had a couple of good performances, but got here away empty-handed.
The Sharks entered Saturday with just 25 goals of their last 12 games, a mean of two.08 goals per game that was the bottom within the NHL since Dec. 13. Walman, who leads all Sharks defensemen with 26 points in 32 games, missed one in all those games with eight points after suffering a lower-body injury on December 21 against the Edmonton Oilers.
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