SAN JOSE — The San Jose Sharks aren’t that far off from being a winning hockey team. Or at the very least, a team that can win a hockey game.
But various circumstances have conspired to keep them from winning an NHL game for 17 days and counting.
On Saturday night against the Calgary Flames, an exceptional play kept San Jose from tying the game. Down 2-1 early in the third period, Sharks forward Klim Kostin, making his return after two weeks away with an upper body injury, found the puck near his stick on the right side of the Flames’ crease. Kostin looked to have an open net to score, as Calgary netminder Dustin Wolf was covering the far side of the goal.
But despite losing his stick, forward Blake Coleman, the closest Calgary player to the puck, laid his body out flat in the crease and obstructed Kostin’s easiest opportunity to score, preventing Kostin from connecting with the puck for a shot on net.
Once again, it was that kind of night for San Jose, which ultimately lost 3-1 after Jonathan Huberdeau scored a game-sealing empty-net goal with 0.4 seconds remaining.
“We just watched it,” said Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky after the game of Kostin’s chance. “Coleman sprawls out. Does a desperation (move), gets a piece of it.”
San Jose’s last win came on Dec. 12, when the Sharks beat St. Louis 4-3 on the road in Missouri. It’s been a perpetual state of misery for San Jose since then.
The Sharks’ latest loss was typically close and typically aggravating. Only Huberdeau’s last-second score, his second of the game, prevented San Jose from enduring its third defeat in four games by exactly one goal.
Overall, it was the Sharks’ seventh loss in a row. San Jose is in the midst of its longest losing streak since the beginning of the season, when the Sharks lost their first nine games.
“I was trying to reach to the puck and send it to the net,” Kostin said. “But their (defender) played well with his skates. A little bit unlucky. But it is what it is.”
That’s how it’s been for the Sharks for weeks now. San Jose has shown that it can compete with any team in the NHL.
Beating them is another story.
“I liked our third period the best,” Warsofsky said. “The first two were not good enough. Again, we can’t give up, I don’t know what it was, (33) shots. It’s too much.”
On Saturday, San Jose squandered a sterling performance by goaltender Yaroslav Askarov, who stopped 30 shots on goal and registered a save percentage of .938.
“It feels pretty good when I have a lot of shots,” Askarov said. “Almost every goalie, when you have a lot of shots, it’s easier. That’s why I like it.”
Wolf, though he got some help from Coleman, was stellar as well. He finished with 21 saves and a save percentage of .955.
“He’s a pretty good goalie,” Askarov said. “I met with him last year at the (AHL) All-Star Game. He’s a good guy. It’s fun to play against him.”
The brightest moment for the Sharks came when Macklin Celebrini ripped a one-timer for the Sharks’ lone goal. The sensational rookie’s shot was set up with a nifty move by Alexander Wennberg along the boards.
Wennberg’s spin move shook Jakob Pelletier to the ice, then his cross-ice pass found Celebrini’s stick for a perfect strike three minutes and four seconds into the second period.
Celebrini’s power-play goal tied the game 1-1. Four minutes later, Calgary was back on top after Mikael Backlund scored on a Flames power play.
It’s been the story of the Sharks season. San Jose has some good players, is getting better and can make splash plays on any night. The Sharks’ young squad just isn’t quite good enough yet to win consistently in the NHL.
“I might be wrong, but I don’t think we started slow,” Celebrini said. “They had a good goal to start. They kind of established the net front. Trailing at the start of the game, it’s not easy, but I thought overall, we did a lot of really good things. We had a lot of chances that could have gone in on a different night. But that’s the way it goes sometimes.
“It’s felt like that for the last however long our losing streak is. We’ve had a lot of games where we’re leading going into the third or we were right there and just can’t close it out. I mean, it’s the reality.”
