Whatever ails the Sharks these days, it’s going to take more
than a locker room tongue-lashing from assistant captain Ryane
Clowe to cure it. In their first game since Clowe’s blast at the
work ethic of some of his unidentified teammates, the Sharks
dropped a 3-0 decision Thursday night to the Buffalo Sabres at HP
Pavilion.
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SAN JOSE
Whatever ails the Sharks these days, it’s going to take more than a locker room tongue-lashing from assistant captain Ryane Clowe to cure it.
In their first game since Clowe’s blast at the work ethic of some of his unidentified teammates, the Sharks dropped a 3-0 decision Thursday night to the Buffalo Sabres at HP Pavilion.
This time, however, it was the coach, not one of the players, doing a slow burn over the loss — and especially the fact the Sharks were behind by two goals before the first period was over.
“We can go back a couple days,” Todd McLellan said in an apparent reference to a quarterly team meeting held Tuesday. “I sat in that locker room and listened to a group of players and the coaches talk about their team and how important starts were and how we’re going to come prepared — and we get that? That was pretty disappointing.”
The loss marked the sixth time this season the Sharks were shut out and sends San Jose into the second half of the season on a two-game losing streak — not the direction players and coaches had in mind when they’ve talked about putting an end to season-long inconsistency.
Sharks goalie Antero Niittymaki was in net for the first time in four games and gave up goals to Sabres forwards Luke Adam, Jochen Hecht and Thomas Vanek while making 19 saves. Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller had the busier night, making 36 saves in earning his third shutout of the season.
Unlike Monday’s loss to Vancouver that triggered strong words from Clowe — “I guarantee you right now there’s guys that don’t feel that tired after that game” — San Jose’s work ethic wasn’t seen as the problem.
Instead, it was one of the other flaws in the Sharks’ game that has been troubling this season: defensive lapses.
“We work on net play yesterday and we give up the first one because we’re soft,” McLellan said. “The second one, we cheat. And the third one, we must have spent 10 or 15 minutes in practice working on that exact play and it comes back to bite us.”
On Buffalo’s first goal, Adam finished off an odd-man rush with a close-in backhand of the rebound of a shot by Cody McCormick. Defenseman Douglas Murray cleared Rob Niedermayer out of the area before he could get his stick on the puck, but Adam eluded Dan Boyle and the Sabres led 1-0 at 10:43 of the first period.
“I just lost track of my guy for half a second and it was in the back of the net,” an apologetic Boyle said.
The Sabres got their second goal at 16:36 of the first period on a play that began when Devin Setoguchi and Jason Demers lost a battle for a loose puck along the side boards in the defensive zone. Buffalo left wing Tyler Ennis came away with the puck and pushed it ahead to Hecht, whose 36-foot wrist shot from the slot beat Niittymaki.
A tripping call against Boyle early in the second period helped Buffalo take a 3-0 lead. The Sabres capitalized on the power play that followed with some crisp puck movement that started at the top of the left faceoff circle and ended with Vanek one-timing a pass from behind the goal line into the San Jose net at 3:31.
The Sharks did generate several offensive opportunities in the second period, outshooting Buffalo 13-5, but nothing got past Miller.
“When you’re sloppy defensively, you usually don’t execute offensively,” McLellan said. “If you’re not committed at one end, very seldom are you rewarded at the other. And that was the case tonight.”
Clowe was less critical of his team’s effort Thursday night, though he too faulted the defensive breakdowns.
“We had pretty good energy, we were getting some pretty good chances.” he said. “Give Miller credit. He had a pretty good game, but we didn’t make it miserable for him.”
The Sharks, who went 0 for 5 on the power play, heard from what was left of the sold-out crowd at the final buzzer.
— Story by David Pollak, San Jose Mercury News
