This was a game that happened.
Hold on, I’m being told I need to add more words if I want to get paid, so I’ll keep going.
A tired Canucks group finally fell into the dreaded San Jose trap game tonight, losing 4-3 to the league-worst Sharks and handing them their fourth win of the season. The Canucks were led by a two-goal performance from Brock Boeser, including a late tally to cut the Sharks lead down to 4-3, but the Sharks pair of goals in the first two minutes of the third proved the difference.
The Canucks have been bouncing from Colorado to Seattle to San Jose since Wednesday, as well as playing seven games in the span of 11 days. That hectic travel and schedule finally took its toll tonight, with the Canucks turning in one of their worst performances of the year.
For the Sharks, tonight was a night of firsts. Ty Emberson scored his first NHL goal to open the scoring, Mikael Granlund notched his first as a Shark, and San Jose won its first game against Vancouver in their last 12(!) attempts.
It looked at points like the Canucks might avoid a cruel fate. Sam Lafferty appeared to give the Canucks the initial lead, but some incidental contact between him and Kaapo Kähkönen’s skate led to the goal being called back.
After Emberson gave the Sharks the actual lead, a Filip Hronek long bomb on the power play tied things up late in the first, thanks to a perfectly timed slap pass from J.T. Miller.
In the second period, the game pace seemed to slow to a crawl. The Canucks began to caught napping in their own end, and Fabian Zetterlund made them pay for it with a one timer from the top of the circle.
But even with the low event hockey the Canucks managed to put things to even before the intermission, with Brock Boeser whacking in a rebound while Tomas Hertl watched from the penalty box.
But the Sharks took over early in the third. Mikael Granlund got things going with a coast-to-coast effort, turnstiling Filip Hronek and deking the puck past Casey DeSmith to bring the SAP Center crowd to their feet.
Then after a Tyler Myers high-sticking call created a 4-on-3 opportunity, Mike Hoffman put a Granlund rebound behind DeSmith to double the Sharks lead and they never looked back.
From there, the Sharks just need to run out the clock and keep the Canucks top scorers from any prime opportunities. Matt Benning took that message to heart, with a dirty hit from behind on Elias Pettersson after he cleanly knocked over Calen Addison.
Boeser’s late game tally pulled the Sharks to within one, but it was too little too late. There’s not a whole lot you can learn from a game between a pair of tired clubs, other than how to put a bad game out of your mind. The Canucks will likely want to burn the game tape tonight, and focus on two very valuable days of rest before they meet the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday.
Stay tuned, The Stanchies with Cody Severtson are on the way!