Sharks Locker Room: Two-Face
CHICAGO — The San Jose Sharks showed their two faces on Wednesday night, in a 5-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks. At times this season, like for most of their 3-2 victory over the Nashville Predators on Monday, they’re a group capable of playing a direct, playoff-worthy game. They did so for 40 minutes, defending […] The post Sharks Locker Room: Two-Face appeared first on San Jose Hockey Now.
Screenshot CHICAGO — The San Jose Sharks showed their two faces on Wednesday night, in a 5-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks. At times this season, like for most of their 3-2 victory over the Nashville Predators on Monday, they’re a group capable of playing a direct, playoff-worthy game. They did so for 40 minutes, defending hard and stifling a sleepy-looking Blackhawks squad with their forecheck.
At that point, the Sharks were up 2-1, and per Natural Stat Trick, had outchanced the home team 10-6 at 5-on-5. And then, the irresponsible San Jose side that flamed out and missed the playoffs showed up in the third period. Careless with the puck and lax defensively, they allowed four unanswered goals.
For a number of the San Jose Sharks youngsters, it was a Jekyll and Hyde performance. Hopefully, next year, there’s a lot more Jekyll than Hyde. Yaroslav Askarov, for example, made back-to-back brilliant saves on Ilya Mikheyev in the first period, including a penalty shot…and then he surrendered a soft bad-angle bid to Sam Rinzel to close the second period.
Macklin Celebrini has enjoyed a Hart Trophy-worthy campaign, but it was his blind pass up the middle that Connor Bedard jumped on to go the other way, finding Louis Crevier to tie the game. Sam Dickinson killed play after play in the first period, but then fell asleep on Crevier attacking the net, on what should’ve been a routine 3-on-3 backcheck. Luca Cagnoni had his best offensive period in the NHL in the opening frame…and then lost Tyler Bertuzzi on a corner pin, before Bertuzzi hit Crevier on the blueline for the 4-2 bomb.