Quick bites: Sharks stifled by Kings

The recently explosive offense for the San Jose Sharks was smothered by the league’s best road team. The Los Angeles Kings never gave the Sharks room to make plays and intercepted passes all night long en route to a 4-1 victory. It bumped the Kings’ road record up to 13-1-1.

Postgame, Head Coach David Quinn said he would have liked to see more from his players.

“Thought we had a good first period and then we stunk for two periods,” said Quinn. “Thought it was men amongst boys in the second and third period. I thought they were quicker, played with more conviction, more physical. That second goal really deflated us.”

On several occasions, the Sharks tried to create scoring chances only to have the Kings close in on them or find an opponent’s stick instead of a teammate’s. What resulted was a game similar to the ones fans witnessed in October and November rather than what they had been seeing lately in December. The Sharks were outshot and outscored.

Can’t score if you don’t shoot the puck

The Sharks had just 16 shots on goal compared to LA’s 39 and San Jose’s shot selection wasn’t great. The shot choices were too exacting to be of any use. Looking at the heat map from Natural Stat Trick, you can see that San Jose kept looking for the perfect shot instead of just trying to get it on net.

While the Kings were taking shots from, well, everywhere, the Sharks were looking to get in close first. A good portion of that can be credited to the Kings’ defensive style of play. They closed in quickly on the player with the puck and often blocked shots from the point, never allowing them to get through to goaltender David Rittich.

However, the Sharks also failed to adopt that shoot first mentality you often hear about. At one point, Kevin Labanc received the puck in the Kings’ zone and instead of firing it on the net, he went for that perfect extra pass. Needless to say, it did not work.

Henry Thrun challenged with a new task

Young defenseman Henry Thrun has been asked to do a lot in his first season as a professional hockey player. At times, he’s thrived, and at others, he’s needed a bit of a reset. Last night, he was asked to do something new. Quinn penciled him in to play with Nikita Okhotiuk and with Thrun on his off-side. Thrun says it was difficult at times.

“There’s more to it than I think that the average viewer might see. There’s a lot through the neutral zone that I think you’re limited to, particularly moving the puck. It’s really hard to make a cross-ice pass or to get the puck going north because you see a lot of pucks on your backhand,” said Thrun. “But it’s something that I’ve spent some seasons doing, so it’s something that I kind of know where to protect myself and where it’s possible to get exposed on the off-side. It’s something that I haven’t done much this year, but a couple shifts and you sort of get back in the flow of it.”

While normally an adept puck mover, Thrun had some of the lowest possession numbers on the team last night. Still, he stuck with it, and Quinn didn’t fault him for making some missteps.

“It’s tough. It’s a tough ask for people that are learning as they go in the National Hockey League all of a sudden to put two guys on their off-side. It’s only going to help our cause,” said Quinn.

Since his most recent call up, Thrun has slotted in against two of the best teams in the league in the Los Angeles Kings and the Vegas Golden Knights.

“It’s just really a focused effort every night, making sure that I’m fully physically and mentally dialed in because going against the top guys in the world, if you take a second off, they can expose you,” said Thrun. “So, for me, I felt that I’ve grown in that are; still got some work to do.”

Meanwhile, Quinn keeps in mind that Thrun is still learning.

“He tries his ass off. He’s coachable and these are great experiences for him,” said Quinn. “You need just a little bit more anticipation with the puck. Puck management’s big, just like most young players when we get to this league.”

Jacob MacDonald goes full Brent Burns

Jacob MacDonald was switched back to defense for this game but he didn’t change his mindset. The defenseman was possibly the best player on the ice last night in terms of creating offense. MacDonald led the team in shots with three and scored the only goal of the game.

Elite goal scorer Jacob MacDonald gets the #SJSharks on the board.
4-1 pic.twitter.com/GkKNqTYPbt

— JD Young (@MyFryHole) December 20, 2023

MacDonald went full Brent Burns on the Kings last night and while the score didn’t end in the Sharks’ favor, I enjoyed his play immensely.