SAN JOSE – The San Jose Sharks – for the third consecutive game — were not ready to play from the opening drop of the puck on Monday.
It proved costly, as the Seattle Kraken most of their damage in the first 20 minutes and handed the Sharks a 4-2 loss before an announced crowd of 11,559 at SAP Center.
The Sharks, coming off a 4-0 win over the St. Louis Blues on Saturday, allowed goals to Matty Beniers, Oliver Bjorkstrand, and Shane Wright and never recovered, as they lost for the 10th time in 11 games.
“You have to be engaged physically if you’re going to give yourself a chance, and we weren’t anything like that in the first 20 minutes,” Sharks coach David Quinn said. “It got better in the last 40, but not to the level that we need it to be.”
Monday’s game represented a chance for the Sharks to win back-to-back games for the first time since Jan. 22 and 23, when they beat the Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers to extend their then-winning streak to three games.
Even after the slow start, the Sharks only trailed 3-2 going into the third period.
With the Sharks down by two, Mikael Granlund controlled the puck behind the Seattle net and sent it back to the point for Calen Addison. The puck then found its way over to Marc-Edouard Vlasic, who fired the puck toward Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer.
The shot was tipped by Klim Kostin past Grubauer, giving him his seventh goal of the season and his fourth since he came to the Sharks on March 8 from the Detroit Red Wings for defenseman Radim Simek.
It was a good way for the Sharks to mostly erase a terrible start, as they allowed three goals in the first 17:06, including one 29 seconds into the game.
“All year, I think our resilience is something that we pride ourselves on,” Sharks defenseman Kyle Burroughs said. “Being able to climb back and never say die and keep fighting.”
The Sharks turned the puck over in their own zone, and after he found a soft spot in the Sharks’ end, Beniers took a pass from Bjorkstrand and fired it past Mackenzie Blackwood for a 1-0 Kraken lead.
Bjorkstrand and Wright also scored in the first period for the Kraken, goals sandwiched around a power play marker by Fabian Zetterlund at the 14:19 mark.
Blackwood, making his fourth straight start, made seven saves in the first period and eight more in the second. He finished with 29 saves.
Blackwood had to be terrific in the first period in the Sharks’ last two games as well, as the skaters in front of him could not generate many offensive opportunities. In the first period of both games, they were outchanced, per Natural Stat Trick, 22-5.
“There’s a pattern going on now where we’ve gotten off to bad starts the last three games,” Quinn said. “We have to do a better job of being ready to go at the drop of the puck. You don’t have much of a chance in this league when you’re only playing 40 minutes.”
San Jose lost 3-1 to the Wild, but beat the Blues 4-0, improving as both games went on.
“You don’t want to give up a goal 29 seconds into a game,” Sharks defenseman Kyle Burroughs said. “It’s not the way you want to start, it doesn’t set the tone well. Obviously, we’re going to have to be better about that moving forward and correct that.”
