Sharks lose 7-6 to Blues in Wild West shootout

SAN JOSE — If you did not know any better, you would have sworn you were teleported back to the 1980's watching the San Jose Sharks and St. Louis Blues game.

In a game that featured 13 combined goals, with no team ever scoring two consecutively, the Blues escaped Silicon Valley with a 7-6 win in a what was a good ol' fashion Wild West type of a shootout on Saturday evening at SAP Center.

The Sharks scored 17 seconds into the game when Timo Meier's shot deflected off a Blues defender's leg and past goalie Jordan Binnington.

St. Louis had an answer every time San Jose scored a goal.

Despite getting two goals a piece from both Meier and Evander Kane, the Sharks defense could not stop the Blues relentless attack, despite them missing seven players due to injury coming into the game.

The big momentum changer came in the third period with the Sharks starting the period on a power play. MacKenzie MacEachern finished off a two-on-one chance for a short-handed goal to give the Blues its first lead of the game.

The Sharks did its best to play catch-up, twice getting goals from Kevin Lebanc and Logan Couture, but Marco Scandella's second goal of the season at the 7:14 mark held up to be the game winner and left the Sharks scratching their heads on a game they were in control of for the first 40 minutes.

"That one's on us," said Sharks head coach Bob Boughner after the game. "I think we gave up 13 chances (with) seven or eight in the back of your net. So you're not going to win a lot of hockey games like that."

It was not a good night to be a goalie in the contest. Sharks goalie Devan Dubnyk was the victim of giving up all seven goals on 31 shots. However, the most frustrated player on the evening was Blues goalie Binnington, who was replaced in the second period by Ville Husso after surrendering his fourth goal on just 19 shots.

On the way to the locker room, Binnington decided to take some liberties by taking a swing at Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson and then engaging with Dubnyk as the two shoved each other before Binnington finally left the ice.

"I guess he was frustrated," said Dubnyk regarding Binnington's tantrum. "I don't know why he was skating around pretending to punch people. I just told him to get off the ice and calm down. If you want to get into it, fine, but I don't know why he's out there fake punching people. But he was obviously pissed off about something."

One of the glaring stats in the game was the Sharks lack of ability to win faceoffs. The Blues won the battle 67% to 37%. It did not even look that close as St. Louis seemed to have won every critical faceoff in the third period. Of course it did not help that the San Jose was without one of its top centers. Tomas Hertl was placed on the COVID-19 protocol list this past Wednesday, forcing the postponement of Thursday's game against Vegas. He will not be back until March 12th at the earliest.

Dylan Gambrell, who was benched the previous game against Minnesota, was beaten several times in the faceoff circle and as he only won 35% of his draws and at one point was 3-for-11.

Despite defensemen Radim Simek and Karlsson returning from injuries, the Sharks blueliners were a collective -5 on the ice tonight. the team had eight giveaways overall.

The one positive the Sharks can take from this game was them snapping an 0-for-8 skid on the power play. They went 2-for-6 but did give up the short-handed goal.

"We had some chances to extend the lead," said Evander Kane. "It just seemed to be one of those back and forth games kinda all night long. Really through the course of the season against these guys."