The deck was stacked against the San Jose Sharks before Monday’s game with the Edmonton Oilers even began.
Some Sharks’ veterans were too banged up to make the team’s trip to Alberta, the team said, leaving some inexperienced players to take on the world’s most dangerous forward in Connor McDavid and an Oilers offense that ranks as one of the most potent in the NHL.
The result was not pretty, but also rather predictable for anyone who has spent time watching the Sharks try to play defense this season.
The Sharks allowed four goals on 10 shots in the first period and five more on 17 shots in the second as they were flattened 9-2 by the Oilers, who handed San Jose one of its most lopsided losses of this dismal season.
Sharks starting goalie Devin Cooley was hung out to dry on several occasions as the skaters in front of him looked completely helpless about how to defend McDavid and the Oilers.
“We maybe looked at the lineup on the other end, and we played scared in the first period,” Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro, “and obviously there was a snowball effect.”
“We never looked like we really thought we had a chance. That’s kind of what it felt like,” Sharks coach David Quinn. “We were slow, very slow in everything we were doing and we were losing a lot of battles and there was a lot of hesitation in our game.”
After he allowed his eighth goal of the game, with Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard scoring his 18th of the season at the 13:49 mark of the second period, Cooley momentarily laid flat on the ice – face down — as the music blared at Rogers Place.
“Right now, if I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t want to hear anything right now,” Ferraro said when asked what he or other Sharks skaters would say to Cooley after the game.
Cooley allowed eight goals on 22 shots before he was mercifully pulled.
Georgi Romanov came on in relief of Cooley, making his NHL debut, and allowed the Oilers’ ninth goal at the 15:35 mark of the second, as McDavid recorded his 100th assist of the season, setting up Zach Hyman for his 54th goal.
“I wanted to avoid putting Georgi in as much as I could,” Quinn said, “but at some point in time, you’ve got to call off the dogs and take out (Cooley) and put Georgi in.”
McDavid joins Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Bobby Orr as the only players in NHL history to record 100 assists in a season. His production has helped the Oilers have the fourth-most prolific offense in the NHL this year.
Danil Gushchin and William Eklund both scored for the Sharks (19-53-9), who have now allowed 326 goals this season, the highest total since they gave up 357 in 1995-96. Romanov finished with 14 saves on 15 shots, as the Oilers took their foot off the gas pedal to some degree in the third period.
Adam Henrique, Darnell Nurse, and Dylan Holloway had three points each for the Oilers. McDavid had a goal and an assist, with his goal, his 32nd of the season, coming just 53 seconds into the first period.
“He did a good job,” Quinn said of Romanov. “That’s as good a team as there is offensively in the league and he did a good job under tough circumstances.”
Several Sharks players did not join the team for their final road trip of the year, ending their respective seasons and for a few of them, likely their tenures with the organization.
Forwards Kevin Labanc, Mike Hoffman, Filip Zadina, and Alexander Barabanov, forward/defenseman Jacob MacDonald, defenseman Jan Rutta, and goalie Mackenzie Blackwood all did not travel with the Sharks.
Blackwood started Saturday’s game and stopped 32 of 38 shots in the Sharks’ 6-2 loss to Minnesota. Quinn, though, said Blackwood “is battling something. He has for a while, actually,” leading the team to recall Romanov from the AHL.
The Sharks have now lost by six or more goals seven times this season. Their most lopsided losses came in November, when they were trounced 10-1 and 10-2 by the Vancouver Canucks and Pittsburgh Penguins, respectively, in successive games.
How do the rebuilding Sharks ensure they don’t have many more nights like Monday, or seasons like this?
“We all know where we’re at as an organization,” Quinn said. “When we got here two years ago, everybody knew we were going to have to get worse before we got better. That’s just the reality. So I think we all know the answer to that question, right?”
The Sharks by trading Brent Burns, Timo Meier, Erik Karlson, and Tomas Hertl have no doubt created a ton of salary cap space — $35 million for next season, per CapFriendly — and have built up one of the better prospect bases in the NHL.
“We’re in the middle of something that is going well, despite the results we’re getting right now,” Quinn said. “I’ve said this repeatedly, we’re in a much better position to get better, quicker than we were two years ago. You just look at all the players that we’ve traded and gotten rid of over the last two years, so we can get better and be consistently good, competing for Stanley Cups.”
“Unfortunately, this is what you have to suffer though. So that’s the answer.”
Including the two goalies, the Sharks had 15 players in Monday’s game who were age 26 or younger. That’s the most the team put on the ice in exactly 31 years, as they had 16 players fall into that category on April 15, 1993, when they played the Flames.
“It’s on us as players to remember this feeling to know why this happened,” Sharks forward Luke Kunin said. “It’s happened a few times this year, too many times, and learn from it. You’ve got to be better, you’ve got to learn, you’ve got to adapt you’ve got to grow.
“Hopefully our young guys that are going through this, they don’t like this taste either. I know they don’t like the feeling or the taste and hopefully, we can get out of it together.”
