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Quick Bites: Sharks put it all out there and lose

Posted on by Erika Towne
Sharks fall to the Avalanche 2-1 in the shootout. San Jose goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 51 shots including 14 from Nathan MacKinnon.

It’s not often that you can watch your favorite team lose and still feel happy with the game, but last night was one of those instances for Sharks fans. The San Jose Sharks, led by goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood, weathered the onslaught of the Colorado Avalanche for 65 minutes before falling to the 2022 Stanley Cup Champions 2-1 in the shootout. Thomas Bodeleau scored his first career NHL goal, while Cale Makar tied things up with less than 1:30 remaining in the third period and the goaltender pulled. Blackwood was without a doubt the first star of the game.

Mackenzie Blackwood stops 51 shots

This was not a case of the Avalanche not showing up. Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar, among others, were all in fine form. MacKinnon had 14 shots on goal and Blackwood stopped all of them. That’s right, all of them.

The heat map at even strength strength gives you a great idea of the kind of shots Blackwood faced.

The Avalanche were all over the place and this doesn’t even account for the shots that Blackwood dealt with on the power play. The Sharks took six penalties last night. One of them gave the Avs 25 seconds of 5-on-3 time. Another happened near the end of overtime, allowing Colorado 32 seconds of 4-on-3 time. Colorado didn’t score on any of those man advantages.

According to Natural Stat Trick, Blackwood faced 14 high-danger scoring chances and stopped them all. Here’s a sampling of some of them.

In other words, Blackwood was playing on another level and Sharks fans loved it. Blackwood’s performance was enough to put him on the NHL history books, albeit for a very niche stat.

Blackwood’s supporting cast should not be forgotten

Blackwood was amazing last night, but the players around him deserve some credit as well. The Avalanche had 111 shot attempts in the game. That means that there were 60 other shots to account for aside from the ones that actually made it through to Blackwood.

San Jose’s players sacrificed to keep the puck away from Blackwood as much as they could. In total, the team blocked 27 shots. Ten players on the team were credited with at least one blocked shot. Matt Benning led the way with five.

He also prevented at least one other with this heads up play:

Nico Sturm and Mario Ferraro were close behind Benning with four blocked shots apiece. Jan Rutta and Nikolai Knyzhov each had three blocked shots. Thanks to Rusty James on Twitter who pointed out that Rutta leads the team in blocked shots through two games with eight.

Key faceoff wins were another way the Sharks helped keep the puck away from Blackwood. Sturm was leaned on heavily for defensive zone faceoffs and starts in the defensive zone. He was excellent in the faceoff circle, winning 60% of his faceoffs.

In fact, the entire Sharks team was better in the faceoff circle last night than the Avalanche, winning 58.6% of the night’s faceoffs.

Bordeleau gets his first as a Shark

It took 18 career games, but Bordeleau finally scored his first NHL goal.

Mike Hoffman does a great job of getting to a puck rimmed around the boards first and just poking it to Benning. Benning then tees it up as quickly as possible and Bordeleau is right in front of the net for the tip.

Hopefully, this is the first of many this season.

Other notes

  • Marc-Edouard Vlasic left the game midway through the first period and did not return. Head Coach David Quinn did not have an update on his condition after the game.
  • This was another game where the line of Givani Smith, Sturm and Fabian Zetterlund really brought some energy. According to Natural Stat Trick, the fourth line had the best Corsi For % (41.67) than any of the Sharks other lines.
  • Bordeleau briefly went to the lockerroom after a hit pushed him and Miles Woods into an open bench door. Both were on the ice for a few moments and went to their respective lockerrooms. They were both back out on the ice a few shifts later.
  • If you’re wondering, Rantanen scored the only goal for the Avs in the shootout. Alexander Barabanov, Eklund and Hoffman all missed for the Sharks.
  • In case you missed the Makar goal that tied the game, here’s a clip. There was so much traffic in front of the net, there was really nothing Blackwood could do about it.
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