If this isn’t the bottom, one can only imagine the hockey
horrors that lie ahead. Thursday night at HP Pavilion, the Sharks
lost 5-2 to the Edmonton Oilers
— a team that had won only once in its previous 10 games, a team
that lives comfortably in the Western Conference basement, a team
San Jose already had beaten three times this season.
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SAN JOSE
If this isn’t the bottom, one can only imagine the hockey horrors that lie ahead.
Thursday night at HP Pavilion, the Sharks lost 5-2 to the Edmonton Oilers — a team that had won only once in its previous 10 games, a team that lives comfortably in the Western Conference basement, a team San Jose already had beaten three times this season.
With the loss, the Sharks have now gone six games without picking up a point — a stretch of futility the franchise hasn’t experienced since the 1995-96 season when Jim Wiley was coach, Owen Nolan had just arrived in a trade from Colorado and Chris Terreri got the bulk of the games in net.
Rookie Taylor Hall scored twice for Edmonton, which got one goal each from Andrew Cogliano, Dustin Penner and Linus Ormark as Sharks goaltender Antero Niittymaki faced 28 shots. Joe Thornton and Ryane Clowe got third-period power-play goals as San Jose fired 43 shots on backup goalie Devan Dubnyk, but it was too little too late.
If one play can typify the frustration of almost two weeks of losing hockey, it was the one that led up to the Oilers’ third goal.
Late in the second period, Hall was bringing the puck through the neutral zone and defenseman Niclas Wallin was backpedaling into position. With no one around him, Wallin fell, allowing Hall easy access to goalie Niittymaki.
Despite that, Niittymaki appeared to make the save. But the puck got caught in his gear, and when it fell out, trickled toward the goal line. Even then, it looked as if Thornton might have swept it out of the crease before it completely crossed the goal line.
But the play was reviewed in the NHL war room in Toronto and after an extended delay, Edmonton’s lead had increased to 3-0.
The Sharks heard boos several times during the game, but the unhappiness extends to inside the locker room as well these days.
“There should be tension in your locker room all the time,” Coach Todd McLellan said before the game. “It shouldn’t be a casual, loose affair. But when you’re not winning, the tension tends to rise a little bit more, guys are on edge a little bit more. It’s a natural human reaction whether you’re playing hockey, football or you’re a teacher at school.”
Edmonton took a 1-0 lead at 15:34 of the first period on another San Jose defensive breakdown.
This time Dany Heatley cleared the puck into the corner where it was retrieved by Oilers left wing Liam Reddox. Douglas Murray followed him to the top of the right faceoff circle, but that left Cogliano alone down low, and his shot beat Niittymaki on the short side.
Earlier in the period, the Sharks got a scare after Clowe tried to spark the Sharks by picking a fight with Theo Peckham at 6:38. But instead of going to the penalty box, Clowe had to be helped to the locker room with an apparent injury.
He did return for the second period, however.
Edmonton increased its lead to 2-0 at 3:50 of the second period when Penner fired a one-timer from the left faceoff circle. Meanwhile, the closest the Sharks came to scoring was when a clearing attempt by Dubnyk glanced off Scott Nichol’s skate and deflected just wide of the open net.
The Sharks got their first goal at 5:55 of the third period when Dany Heatley hit Thornton with a cross-crease pass. Thornton’s 15-foot wrist shot at least kept San Jose from being shut out for the third time in five games.
San Jose did kill off almost a full two minutes of a five-on-three disadvantage shortly after that, but five seconds after the teams were at even strength, Oilers rookie Ormark fired a rebound past Niittymaki at 9:14.
Clowe’s goal came with 49 seconds left, but Hall fired into an empty net with 2.3 seconds left to make the final score 5-2.
— Story by David Pollak, San Jose Mercury News
