Hertl Assists, Abeltshauser Scores in Sharks 3-2 Loss to Canucks

The San Jose Sharks dropped their first game of the Young Stars Rookie Tournament to their new division foe, the Vancouver Canucks, 3-2 on Thursday.

All things considered, the result does not matter much. The Sharks outshot the Canucks 39-22, but were unable to capitalize on six powerplay opportunities despite seeming to control play for the majority of the game. Vancouver did not score on any of their five powerplays, either.

Cory Schneider Bo Horvat opened the scoring for the Canucks at 3:31, but his goal was answered less than a minute later by the Sharks’ Chris Crane at 4:09.

Nicklas Jensen scored the only goal in the second period, and it came in the waning seconds to give the Canucks a 2-1 advantage at 19:23.

Number nine prospect Konrad Abeltshauser tied the game at two on an assist from Tomas Hertl at 12:29 of the third period, but the Canucks answered back at 13:21 with a soft goal from Daniel Johnston against Troy Grosenick.

Grosenick relieved starter J.P. Anderson in the third period and faced the same number of shots in the third period as Anderson had in the first two periods combined.

Worcester Sharks head coach Roy Sommer, who is at the reigns of this team, mixed up the lines considerably on the power play, meaning there was not much familiarity between line mates from powerplay to powerplay.

Hertl, Matthew Nieto, Eriah Hayes, Abeltshauser and Kyle Bigos started on the first line of the powerplay. Chris Tierney, Spenser Jensen, Crane and Rylan Schwartz also saw time during the first powerplay of the night.

Number two prospect Mirco Mueller was cross-checked at 9:24 to send the Sharks to their first powerplay and immediately went back to the dressing room. He did not reemerge for the rest of the game.

Abeltshauser also gave the Sharks a scare in the second period as he was hit in the head by a helmet and left the ice. He returned to the ice for the third period and showed no ill-effects.

Some names that stood out:

Ludwig Blomstrand for the Canucks took a heavy hit near the Sharks net while he possessed the puck — not only did he not lose possession of the puck, he passed it to Jensen who gave Vancouver the lead at the end of the second period. Everyone on the ice seemed surprised that Blomstrand got the pass away and they were caught flat footed as Jensen buried his shot.

Hertl had just one shot on goal and took four penalty minutes, but he was a factor on one of the Sharks two goals and appeared to be heavily involved in the Sharks’ offensive game.

Abeltshauser scored a goal on four shots and was a huge (huge) physical presence on the ice for San Jose.

Crane took five shots and scored a goal.

I liked what I saw from the Sharks 49th-overall pick Gabryel Boudrea in the offensive zone.

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The Sharks enjoyed 19 minutes of power play time. Spending as much time as possible in the sin bin must be an organizational goal for Vancouver. San Jose made up for lost time, though, and ended up with 15 minutes of penalty time. Bunch of divers.

San Jose will play the Winnipeg Jets this afternoon at 4:00 p.m. PST. That game, like Thursday’s, will be embedded in a post on FTF.