Quick Bites: Better effort, same result

The San Jose Sharks are starting to find their game, even if the score sheet continues to show the same results. Through two and a half periods, San Jose hung with a Florida Panthers team that retained most of the players that helped it to the Stanley Cup Finals last season. It is a team that had won four straight and is very much in the competition to vie for the Cup again this season. In other words, it’s a team that’s where the Sharks want to be in a few years, not where they are now. But San Jose hung in there and even took the lead until a two-minute span where the wheels came off. Sadly, San Jose lost 5-3.

Two minutes and the game was lost

So let’s talk about those two minutes that lost the Sharks the game.

9:28 into the third period, the Sharks have a 3-2 lead. The Panthers are pushing, trying not to suffer the same fate as the Philadelphia Flyers and Edmonton Oilers. Florida has upped the pace and the Sharks seem to be responding. Then Marc-Edouard Vlasic sticks out his leg and trips a Panthers’ player. The Panthers get a power play.

Needless to say, the penalty kill did not go well. Less than a minute into the man advantage, Carter Verhaeghe tied up the game with a killer shot from the slot. The Sharks, already on their heels, could not gain the momentum back fast enough. Sixty-three seconds after that, Kevin Stenlund scored to give the Panthers the lead.

Things almost took a turn for the more worse (?), worser (?)…let’s say it was bad, when there was a third goal that almost counted. San Jose challenged the goal for offsides and won, but the damage was done.

Vlasic did not get a shift after that penalty.

To show you just how bad the swing in momentum was, check out this win probability line graph from TSN. The bolded teal dot is the win probability for the Sharks after Kunin scored. You can see what happened in the minutes following.

Addison’s addition paying dividends

The game flow chart (Corsi) from Natural Stat Trick shows that the Panthers dominated play after the first period. The team had the puck more and thus created scoring chances from that possession. There was at least one long stretch where San Jose didn’t get a shot on net. The Panthers were the better possession team.

However, I think the game flow chart that looks at expected goals in all situations tells a better story of what happened to the Sharks last night. No, the team did not dominate the play or possess the puck as much as it would have liked. That’s an issue of skill versus skill and player personnel. However, the Sharks did trade quality scoring chances with the Panthers, something it did not do consistently during the first 10-15 games of the season.

The Sharks had several instances where the players would take a scoring chance for the opposition and immediately transition to a scoring chance of their own.

Much of this can be attributed to the play of Calen Addison and, to a lesser extent, Ty Emberson. Having a defenseman that can fuel the transition to offense has helped the Sharks immensely. There have been more opportunities for the Sharks to gain the zone and then maintain possession since Addison arrived. Emberson has also added this to the Sharks, though not as noticeably as Addision.

Best on best, Hoffman scores and other notes

Other details that stood out was that the line of Tomas Hertl, William Eklund and Fabian Zetterlund were tasked with going head to head with the Aleksander Barkov line. Barkov is considered one of the best two-way forwards in the game today, so it was a true test for Hertl, who also wants to be one of the best forwards in the game. While Hertl won the battle on the power play, Barkov was the better player at even strength.

Mike Hoffman got the Sharks on the board first with his first goal in teal. Hoffman had gone 17 games without scoring, dating back to his days with the Montreal Canadiens. It was the second-longest scoring drought of his career. Hopefully, the goals keep coming.

Mikael Granlund was the second star of the game and had two assists. While he only received a secondary assist on Hertl’s goal to tie things up in the second period, he was the player who brought the puck into the zone and helped the Sharks set up the power play.

Daniil Gushchin was called up earlier this week and played on a line with Granlund and Luke Kunin last night. Gushchin had several plays that caused ESPN+ play-by-play announcer John Buccigross to shout in excitement, including a scoring opportunity where he pulled the puck back between his legs and then took a shot on net.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that three players had ice time outside of what would be expected in a “normal” game. Vlasic only played 12:46 last night and didn’t play a shift after the penalty. Kevin Labanc’s minutes were significantly down. He only played 6:28. Meanwhile, Givani Smith played 5:55 and only had one shift in the third period. Ryan Carpenter was in that mix of low ice time with 10:09, but that’s about what you’d expect from a fourth-line center.

Panthers at Sharks highlight of the night

This morning, we’re going to highlight Kunin’s second goal in as many games. Kunin is very vocal about the fact that he has type 1 diabetes. He uses his platform as a professional athlete to try and bring attention to the medical issue while showcasing that type 1 diabetes does not slow you down. It’s very fitting that he happened to score on World Diabetes Day.

The Sharks pull ahead 🦈 pic.twitter.com/CHVOm9dJkw

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 15, 2023