Quick Bites: Vatrano 2, Sharks 1

The San Jose Sharks continue to have difficulty scoring, no matter what ice the team is on. Last night, the Anaheim Ducks and, most specifically, Frank Vatrano beat the Sharks and handed San Jose its 12th regulation loss of the season. Vatrano scored Anaheim’s first and second goal of the night, helping the Ducks to a 4-1 victory.

He’s a Shark killer at this point. In 15 games against the Sharks, he has15 points, which is more than double his career point-per-game pace. Luke Kunin scored for San Jose, and Mackenzie Blackwood made 40 saves in the loss.

Outshot, outscored

Sunday night’s loss has continued a disturbing trend for San Jose. Once again, the team was outshot. The Ducks put 44 shots on net and 4 of them found their way in. In contrast, San Jose had 26 shots on goal and just 1 of those shots found its way to the back of the net.

Getting outshot has been a trend for the Sharks in the first 15 games of this season. Even in the team’s two wins, the Sharks were outshot. Against the Philadelphia Flyers, the shot clock was 39-19 in favor of Philly. It was even worse against the Edmonton Oilers, where the shots were 41-18 in favor of Edmonton.

In 15 games, the Sharks have allowed 576 shots against, averaging about 38.4 per game. The Ducks, a team that was worst in the league in shots against in 2022-23 allowed an average of 39.11 shots on goal per game, so San Jose is right on track in that sense.

Meanwhile, the Sharks have put the puck on net 361 times this season, equaling an average of approximately 24 per game.

Luke Kunin rewarded

Kunin is not the most skilled forward on the Sharks. He doesn’t have the best hands or the swiftest feet. However, he is an extremely hard worker willing to sacrifice his body to keep the puck out of the net or keep an opposing player from taking liberties with his teammates. So, it was nice to see him rewarded with a goal last night.

Kunin ties it in the first 🙌 pic.twitter.com/GvfpFmy4Gj

— Sharks on NBCS (@NBCSSharks) November 13, 2023

Tomas Hertl started things out with a pass across the ice to William Eklund. Eklund shot the puck on net and Kunin ate up the rebound to put it in.

Later in the game, Kunin also got into a fight with Anaheim’s Max Jones.

Odd man out on defense

San Jose decided to go with seven defensemen in last night’s lineup, leaving just one watching from the upper decks – Ty Emberson. Emberson has not played since the 2-1 win over Philadelphia, missing the last three games as a healthy scratch. The timing coincides with the acquisition of Calen Addison, who has had an almost immediate impact on the power play and is also a right-shot defenseman like Emberson.

However, given that the Sharks went with seven defensemen last night, it’s interesting that Emberson was the odd player out. Head Coach David Quinn and his coaching staff could have sat a left-shot defenseman instead. Perhaps Marc-Edouard Vlasic, who had the lowest ice time of any defenseman at 10:04. Vlasic only played two shifts in the second period.

Emberson’s limbo with the team will not improve in the next few weeks. Addison is playing well, so his spot is secure. Jan Rutta has been a steady veteran presence on the blueline and the coaching staff has liked Kyle Burroughs’ play to start the season. When Matt Benning is healthy, which could be this week or next, the team will have five right-shot defensemen on the roster with only three spots for them. Unless the coaching staff decides to place a defenseman on his off-shooting side, someone is likely to end up on waivers when Benning is healthy and it looks like it’s Emberson.