Well, that sucked.
The San Jose Sharks fell to the Nashville Predators by a score of 3-1 to finish off their five-game road trip, and quite frankly, they did not play good hockey last night.
For positives, it’s hard to single out many Sharks players who did well on the ice last night, but one who can easily be named is goaltender James Reimer. He played fantastic, saving 23 of 25 shots, good for a .920 save percentage and -0.19 goals saved above expectation. He kept the team in the game when at times the Predators should have ran away with it, and he was definitely San Jose’s first star.
Timo Meier continued his great campaign by scoring the Sharks’ lone goal of the game. He is now on a six-game regular-season point streak and an eight-game point streak in general. He has 9 points (4 goals, 5 assists) through six games thus far, and looks to be rebounding from a rough season in 2020-21.
This loss takes the Sharks down to a 4-2-0 record on the season, and 0-2-0 through their last two games.
It’s not too hard to pinpoint what went wrong for the Sharks. They just didn’t come out with energy. They were trailing early in the game and could never really catch up. It’s not wholly their fault; they’ve played a lot of hockey as of late, and it contributed to last night’s loss.
The Sharks’ power play, which has been pretty good up to this point, collapsed. They had numerous special teams chances to get back into the game and just couldn’t bury it. Rookie forwards William Eklund and Jonathan Dahlen did not look very confident for the first time this season. Veterans like Logan Couture and Erik Karlsson who have been leading factors for the team this season were not bad, but definitely were not the game-changers the Sharks need them to be.
All-in-all, if you’re worried about the Sharks after this game, don’t be. It was the tail end of a long road trip, and it was really their first completely bad game of the season, considering they played pretty well after the first period of the game in Boston.
The Sharks face a well-deserved homestand in which they will meet the Montreal Canadiens, Winnipeg Jets, Buffalo Sabres, St. Louis Blues and New Jersey Devils, which gives them a nice chance to get right back on track and end this mini-losing streak.
FTF Three Stars
- Juuse Saros: 28 saves, 29 shots faced — .966 SV%, 1.62 GSAx
- James Reimer: 23 saves, 25 shots faced — .920 SV%, -0.19 GSAx
- Roman Josi: 0-2-2, 78.98 xG% through 23:25 TOI
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