SAN JOSE — The San Jose Sharks have a long list of problems right now. Most won’t be fixed this season, let alone in just one practice as they prepare to play Sidney Crosby, Erik Karlsson, and the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday.
But there is one area the Sharks can at least improve upon as they look to avoid a seventh straight loss and regain some confidence.
“Just compete,” defenseman Jake Walman said Saturday after the Sharks’ 7-2 loss to the Florida Panthers, who handed San Jose its worst home loss of the season. “We’ve got guys in here who know that feeling of winning, and it’s got to come from everybody.
“Every single player on (the Panthers) knows what it takes, and they’re playing that way.”
In the second period against Florida, the Sharks (14-32-6) stopped competing, and some of the sold-out crowd at the Shark Tank that stayed to the bitter end Saturday voiced their displeasure, booing the home team as they left the ice.
“It’s embarrassing for us to do this in front of our home crowd,” Sharks rookie Will Smith said. “We have a tight group here, and we obviously want to be better for the fans and just us in general, just in this room. We want to be better for each other.”
The Sharks are obviously in a deep rebuild and will have plenty of work to do in the months ahead to address some of their roster deficiencies.
With that in mind, staying on top of their details for three periods is a real challenge for the Sharks, regardless of the opponent. Look no further than this six-game losing streak, during which they’ve been outscored 34-17 and have wavered in their commitment to their desired identity of hard, disciplined hockey.
“We get bored when maybe we don’t score goals, or maybe nothing happens,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “We can’t just be OK with nothing happening, and that’s what good teams do. You grind out games. You find different ways to win games. We just think there’s one way to win a game, and that’s cheating the game at times.”
The Sharks would do well to learn from the defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers, both in how they’ve constructed their team and how they compete. The coaching staff and the leadership group set the tone, and it filters through the rest of the group.
The Sharks look so fragile right now, so worn down by the constant losing, that they’ve recently appeared incapable of playing a 60-minute game.
Just look at the past week.
Last Monday, the Sharks, after an encouraging first two periods, fell apart at the seams and allowed four straight goals to the Boston Bruins in a 6-3 loss.
One day later, a four-goal second-period lead turned into a 7-5 loss to the Nashville Predators, a complete and total collapse.
On Thursday, the Sharks’ dreadfully slow start against Nashville put them in a three-goal hole. While the Sharks would later show some grit and tie the game, a third-period penalty led to a Predators power-play goal, resulting in a 6-5 loss.
Saturday, the Sharks competed hard in the first period but appeared to be deflated by Aaron Ekblad’s goal, giving the Panthers a 3-2 lead with 2:52 to go before intermission.
The Sharks then trailed the Panthers by three goals by the 5:35 mark of the second period and just flat-out stopped skating on Jesper Boqvist’s goal that put the Sharks in a 6-2 hole at the 13:07 mark.
“That’s the top of the top, right there,” Warsofsky said of the Panthers, who improved to 29-18-3. “I think we think we were working hard, but we don’t even have a clue how hard you have to work to win in this league consistently.”
For most of the season, the Sharks could at least hang their hat on being a more competitive team than last season. Going into Saturday, 37 of the Sharks’ 51 games had been decided by two goals or less. Their worst home loss this season before Saturday was a 4-0 drubbing at the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers on New Year’s Eve.
The Penguins may offer a small reprieve as they limp into Monday’s game having won just three times in their last 10 games. Pittsburgh barely missed the playoffs last season, but after its 4-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken, it enters Sunday in 15th place in the Eastern Conference and seven points out of a playoff spot.
The Sharks can’t correct all of their ills before Monday, but they again have a chance to take a step at least forward and not continue to regress.
“We’ve had some nights where we haven’t been very good, but I think there are ways that we can (stop the losing),” Sharks winger Tyler Toffoli said. “And nobody’s going to do it for us. It’s within our locker room. We’ve got to show up to work (Sunday), kind of reset, and understand that we’re not going to win very many games when we give up seven goals.”
Warsofsky said the Sharks planned to work on their “rush reads, our tracking effort, (moving) quicker to transition,” among other things.
“So we can’t get to everything (Sunday),” he said, “but we’ll get to some things for sure.”