SAN JOSE – Sharks coach David Quinn stopped his team’s practice on more than one occasion Wednesday, drilling home messages about proper positioning, battle level, and other defensive fundamentals.
A lot of issues had to be addressed after one of the Sharks’ poorest defensive performances of the season the night before against the Vancouver Canucks.
The Sharks had little interest in playing on the right side of the puck Tuesday night at Rogers Arena, allowing six even-strength goals – two in each period – in a 6-2 loss to the Canucks that dropped their record to 11-19-6, which includes a 2-6-5 mark against the Pacific Division.
The Sharks enter Thursday’s home game against the Philadelphia Flyers ranked 30th in the NHL with 95 goals allowed in 36 games (2.64 per game) during 5-on-5 play. Only Columbus (2.88) and Anaheim (2.66) are worse.
“Here we are 30-plus games into it, and we just don’t defend well enough,” Quinn said. “If we’re going to have a chance to win hockey games, we’re going to have to keep the puck out of our net.”
Forwards, defensemen, and goalies all have a hand in the team’s defensive struggles, as the Sharks haven’t allowed this many goals per game (3.64) in all situations since the 1995-96 season when they allowed a league-worst 4.35 goals on average through 82 games.
“Committing to defense is an integral part of the game,” Sharks captain Logan Couture said. “We need to get back to defending hard. When you defend hard, you create offensive chances because other teams are stretching for offense and everyone wants to score.
“It’s natural when you go on the ice, you want to score. No one wants to check for 60 minutes, but you’ve got to realize that if you’re going to check hard, you’re going to get good chances to score. I think we’ve gotten away from that for periods of the year and it bites us.”
Turnovers and trying to force offense have been the Sharks’ biggest issues, Quinn said.
“There’s a loose puck. Are you going to get above it, or get below it,” Quinn said. “All of these are situations that put you in a better position structurally on defense that we just haven’t been consistently good enough at.”
There was plenty to chew on for all of the Sharks’ position groups after Tuesday’s loss, which marked the sixth time in the last 10 games that they had allowed five goals or more.
The Canucks’ first goal came on a 3-on-2 as three Sharks forwards were caught below the puck. The backcheck by all of those forwards wasn’t the most ardent, either, as Bo Horvat had time to backhand a loose puck past goalie James Reimer for a 1-0 Vancouver lead 4:26 into the first period.
“To me, you’ve got to care about defending as much you do about scoring a goal and I think that’s kind of suffered from our end of it a little bit,” Quinn said. “We’ve got to get back to caring about defending.”
Elias Pettersson made it 2-0 less than 12 minutes later thanks to some soft defensive coverage by Erik Karlsson and Jaycob Megna. Lane Pederson wasn’t touched as he was able to get a second shot away on Reimer right in front of the Sharks’ net, and Pettersson chipped a loose puck forward that found its way in for his 16th goal of the season.
Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes made it 4-0 in the second period. After his shot grazed off Brock Boeser’s stick and just past the far post, Hughes then skated around the Sharks’ net to grab his own rebound and went mostly untouched around Noah Gregor and Nico Sturm inside the Sharks’ zone. Hughes then had a clear path to the Sharks’ net before he fired a shot over Reimer’s right shoulder.
“We gave too much time to their skill,” Sharks center Tomas Hertl said. “We weren’t fast enough to close the gap. We just gave them too much time to skate around within our D-zone.”
The Sharks’ goaltending also needs to be better. Reimer, Kaapo Kahkonen, and to a lesser extent, Aaron Dell and Eetu Makiniemi, had combined for a league-worst .881 save percentage prior to Wednesday’s games.
Reimer stopped just 19 of 25 shots Tuesday. His save percentage was .914 through seven games in October, but in five games this month, it has dropped to .882. Per moneypuck.com, Kahkonen’s goals saved above expected per 60 minutes (-1.132) ranks 58th out of 59 goalies who have played at least 10 games. Kahkonen will start against the Flyers.
The Sharks’ coaching staff, in its first year, is trying to lay a foundation and come up with an identity that everyone can follow. How long it takes for the players to adapt is a question that remains unanswered.
“We get distracted by the record or the score,” Quinn said. “Then all of a sudden there’s a sliver of, ‘maybe I’ll cheat offensively’ and that’s not how it works. That’s now how you get out of it, that’s not how you make situations better.
“We’ve got to learn how to make a situation better. Right now, we make it worse too often.”
NOTE: Defenseman Matt Benning is questionable to play against the Flyers. Benning blocked a shot with his skate while killing a penalty Tuesday and skated only briefly Wednesday before the start of practice. Without Benning, Marc-Edouard Vlasic was paired with Radim Simek, who has been a healthy scratch the last two games.