The San Jose Sharks had hoped that the lopsided losses that had been all-too-frequent through the first three-plus weeks of the season were in the rear-view mirror.
But for this Sharks team, those types of nights can never be too far behind, especially when it shows up with no willingness to compete, and zero intention of battling in any of the three zones.
The Sharks played their worst first period of the season on Wednesday, allowing four goals in just over 18 minutes in what became a 7-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena, marking the fifth time in 19 games that San Jose has lost by five or more goals.
“Unacceptable hockey. Pretty much lost the game in the first period,” Sharks winger Anthony Duclair said. “We weren’t ready to go, and that’s just unacceptable.”
The Sharks had mostly been competitive since general manager Mike Grier met with his players on Nov. 6 to stress how intolerable the just-completed losses to the Vancouver Canucks (10-1) and Pittsburgh Penguins (10-2) were to him and the organization.
But that message lasted less than three weeks. Now the Sharks are back to square one.
“Embarrassing,” said Sharks coach David Quinn, as upset as he’s been all season. “We weren’t ready to play. Two breakaways in the first minute and a half. Just absolutely freaking embarrassing.”
Quinn called a timeout five minutes into the first period to berate his team after it looked like the Sharks had fallen behind 2-0 on a goal that was later disallowed.
It didn’t matter. The Kraken would later score twice in 31 seconds to take a 3-0 lead at the 11:07 mark of the first.
Quinn later changed the forward lines, but it didn’t matter. Switched his goalies, and it didn’t matter. Benched a couple of players for a short period of time. Again, it didn’t matter.
The Sharks didn’t do anything remotely necessary to win Wednesday night as their road record fell to a disgraceful 0-9-0 this season. In those games, the Sharks have been outscored 39-6.
Only a goal by Mike Hoffman with under five minutes left in the third period prevented the Sharks (3-15-1) from being shut out on the road for a fourth time this season.
“All we did was chase the puck,” Quinn said. “That’s all we did.”
Speaking of the offense, the rebuilding Sharks have now scored just 28 goals in 19 games, tied with the 2014-15 Buffalo Sabres for the fewest by any NHL team since the introduction of the center red line in 1943-44.
The roster is what it is. So what’s the solution here?
That’s a mystery.
“If I knew that answer we would have started off better,” Quinn said when asked why his team had such a poor first period. “So, we’ll find that out. Our game has been trending in the right direction, and this was just brutal.”
“I don’t have answers for right now because obviously, we weren’t able to do it tonight,” Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro said when asked about the repeated shot disparities (it was 30-14 on Wednesday).
“We dug ourselves a hole in first and we didn’t really get out of it. It’s too hard a question for me to answer right now, but it’s something that myself and the other leaders on this team have to figure out. It’s on us.”
The Sharks felt Wednesday’s loss was more about attitude and approach than any fine details, and Duclair didn’t want to hear about how the team is missing forwards like Logan Couture, Alexander Barabanov, Nico Sturm, and Kevin Labanc.
“We just got out-competed. That’s all,” Duclair said. “It’s not the X’s and O’s. It’s about winning battles. We were losing battles 1 v 1 all over the ice and it cost us.
“Doesn’t matter who’s in the lineup. You’ve got to compete. You’re in the NHL and you’ve got to compete. If you don’t compete, that’s what’s gonna happen in the first period. So it doesn’t matter who’s in the lineup. Everybody has to be ready to go.”
The Sharks now begin a three-game homestand with games against the Montreal Canadiens on Friday, the Canucks on Saturday and the Washington Capitals on Monday.
“We’ve got to figure it out here in the next couple of days before the Montreal game. Obviously, it’ll be addressed,” Duclair said. “You can’t start a game like that in the NHL, you’re going to get embarrassed.
“We’ve been embarrassed before this season, but nothing like the first period today. That was just unacceptable.”
Greir said after his talk with the players earlier this month that if he didn’t see what he wanted to see in terms of improvement, he would be “evaluating everything and looking at everything.”
“If the response isn’t there and I’m not seeing what I need to see then everything will be evaluated,” Grier said on Nov. 6, “and I’m sure there’ll be some changes made.”
Has that approach changed? From Quinn’s perspective, the time for excuses, and being sorry for yourself, is over.
“I don’t want to hear no frickin’ fragile, OK? It’s the National freakin’ Hockey League, and you better show up ready to play every freaking night,” Quinn said. “I don’t care about fragile. Sometimes you don’t have it, I get it. But you want to show up and play with the right freakin intentions and we didn’t do it. You’re going to come here and show up to play with the right freakin’ intentions, and not many guys did it.”