The San Jose Sharks returned from their Christmas break with a 5-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday (Dec. 27), marking their sixth straight defeat. The loss continues a challenging stretch which comes on the heels of some of their best performances of the season. While they had some positive sequences, the Sharks ultimately made too many errors to win the game or even keep it close. The struggles they faced during the game have plagued them throughout the season, and highlight critical places to improve for the remainder of the 2023-24 campaign.
Sharks Let One Mistake Spiral Into More
Shortly into the second period, the Kings’ Kevin Fiala tied the game with a breakaway goal. This wasn’t a disaster in and of itself, provided that the Sharks didn’t lose focus as a result of the goal. They did.
Rather than use the goal as an opportunity to regroup, the Sharks lost their grip on a game they had largely controlled up to that point. Instead, they allowed the Kings to score another goal just 13 seconds later. All of a sudden, the Kings had all the momentum they needed, and set the tone and pace for the rest of the game. This has been a problem for the Sharks all season as well — Wednesday was the 15th time they allowed two goals less than two minutes apart, the most such occurrences in the NHL.
Throughout the season, many of the Sharks’ worst moments have piled onto each other, with one mistake begetting another and creating impossible deficits. The back-to-back goals early in the second period were the latest unfortunate example.
Turnovers Put Kahkonen in Difficult Position
Each of the first two goals the Sharks conceded was due to bad turnovers in unfortunate positions — one at their offensive blue line that allowed for Fiala’s breakaway, and one near their own net. The result of both made goalie Kaapo Kahkonen’s stat line look far worse than it should have been.
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Kahkonen played extremely well, making several stellar saves and helping to keep the game closer than it could have been for much of the night. After a difficult start to the season in which he was clearly outperformed by Mackenzie Blackwood, he has shown significant improvement and turned in a number of performances to even out the competition between the goalie tandem.
Related: After Hot Stretch, San Jose Sharks Regressing to the Mean
But against the Kings, he was repeatedly put in unfortunate situations, particularly on the two goals. Breakdowns on both offense and defense forced him to make tough plays. Although he was able to record saves on some of them, he couldn’t do so enough — nor would it have been fair to expect him to, given the lack of offense the team generated in front of him.
The Sharks’ skaters have spent much of this season putting their goalies on their heels, leading the league in shots allowed per game. Wednesday night was no exception, and it showed in the lopsided final score.
Sharks’ First Period is Most Positive Building Block
If there’s good news for the Sharks from the game, it’s how well they played in the first period. They came out early as the more aggressive team, creating pressure on offense and limiting Los Angeles’ offensive opportunities. The line of Fabian Zetterlund, Anthony Duclair and Mikael Granlund led the way, controlling the puck in most of their first-period shifts and getting scoring chances which culminated in a Zetterlund goal. The result was a period in which the Sharks both led and took more shots.
The problem with this period, of course, was how poorly the other two periods contrasted it. The Sharks allowed the Kings to dominate the remaining 40 minutes, being outshot 37-17 and outscored 5-0. They are returning to their early-season struggles with playing a complete game.
Their next focus needs to be on taking the energy of Wednesday’s first period and applying it to the entirety of their next game. They don’t have long to work on it either — they face the Edmonton Oilers tonight. But doing so will be crucial in their efforts to return to a winning style of hockey.