Sharks listless against Kraken in blowout loss

SAN JOSE — The Sharks played a competitive game on the scoreboard in Saturday night's defeat to the Kraken, if you were only looking at shots on goal.

Despite a slightly-below-average shot total from both teams, Seattle easily handed San Jose a 5-1 blowout loss on a night when the Sharks actually outshot the Kraken by a 25-22 margin.

At the outset, the Sharks appeared to be in a position to at least keep their heads above water after Seattle initially jumped out to a two-goal lead. As has been the case far too often for the Sharks, both of Seattle's first-period goals came from defensive lapses that could not be entirely blamed on the goaltender.

The Kraken opened the scoring when Andre Burakovsky found a trailing Jared McCann in a 3-on-2 situation that produced a quality shot from the slot at 5:46 of the first period.

A few minutes later, the Kraken's third line struck again, with Burakovsky picking up a goal of his own after receiving a feed from Adam Larsson right in front of the Sharks' net. Defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic was in the area but failed to break up the pass or tie up the stick of the goal scorer.

The Sharks then cut the Kraken's lead in half when Will Smith buried a rebound opportunity at 9:46 of the first period. If nothing else, Sharks fans got to see a Smith goal assisted by Macklin Celebrini and Tyler Toffoli, allowing everyone in attendance to celebrate the newly created sleepover line.

It was 2-1 after the first intermission, but the Kraken put the game to bed in the second period with a three-goal outburst that saw Alexandar Georgiev get chased from the game with 8:46 remaining. Up to that point, the Sharks' starting goalie had given up four goals on 11 shots, with two goals coming on shots with no traffic in front of him. Defensive miscues aside, it was a less-than-stellar night in the crease for Georgiev, who was candid in saying he played poorly on Saturday night.

“I obviously just didn't have my best today. Sometimes that happens,” Georgiev said. “They just capitalized on the handful of chances they had. They had some good shots and some shots I wish I had saved, but I just didn’t have my best today.”

Georgi Romanov came in to relieve the starter in net and put up a solid performance that had Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky saying he might have earned an extra start down the final stretch of the season. Romanov stopped 10 of 11 shots faced and surrendered his only goal on a shot that was redirected to the net from a deep slot shot off the stick of McCann.

Romanov might have stopped the bleeding, but the scoreless third period wasn't enough to make the game feel competitive down the stretch. The struggling Sharks power play failed to capitalize on a 5-on-3 opportunity early in the third and came up empty after William Eklund encountered some bad luck and missed an empty net by ringing a shot off the post with the man advantage.

Barclay Goodrow was on the fourth line and saw limited ice time, but Warsofsky said he wants some of the younger guys to model their game after players like him and take the emphasis off of scoring as the ultimate marker of success.

“We're finding out that our young players think the way you make an impact is by scoring goals. It’s not always about scoring goals. It’s being good defensively, making a good hit, having a good stick, and getting on the forecheck when you realize you don’t have it that night,” Warsofsky said.

Telling your young, highly skilled players, who have scored a lot at every level, to focus less on scoring and more on doing the little things might seem a little counterintuitive, like asking your Ferrari to do the same work as your F-150 truck, but Warsofsky is onto something here. As cliché as it might be to say, the Sharks do need a physical presence. That doesn’t necessarily mean San Jose should go out and acquire a tough guy in the offseason, but asking the current crop of players, especially the young ones, to be more physical and focus less on making the cute plays is exactly what this coaching staff should be emphasizing.

When asked if he was “fighting” the puck when trying to make saves, Georgiev chuckled and said he wasn't doing MMA out there, but Eklund didn’t mind getting into a scrap in the final minutes. It was the first fight of his NHL career, but he said he wasn’t thinking about sending a message to the Kraken at the end of a blowout loss when he dropped the gloves with Eeli Tolvanen. “I’m just trying to stand up for myself there,” Eklund said.

Toughness isn't always going to look like one of your top six forwards getting into a fight with the other team's fourth liner, but it could take the form of finishing a check and being physical with your opponent so that they don't have room to rush up the ice and find open space, as the Kraken did on Saturday. I don't need to see more fights from the Sharks, but it would be good to see more fight in their own defensive zone, especially when skilled players aren't creating a ton of chances five-on-five in a game that featured a lower shot total.

Warsofsky said playing a soft game like that was especially disappointing with a healthy number of fans in the seats at the Shark Tank.

“We have to continue to compete and not let soft, bad habits creep into our game," Warsofsky said. "That’s going to be the message these last six games. I thought tonight was disappointing. I thought we had some energy in the crowd, the building was sold out, and I wish we had given them a better performance.”

This team needs to either show more toughness in their own end of the ice or embrace Eklund as the new tough guy on the roster and sign him up for jujutsu and kickboxing lessons. Either way, the Sharks should at least show more of a fighting spirit with only six games remaining.