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The San Jose Sharks fell short in their comeback against the Pittsburgh Penguins today, losing 8-5.
The Sharks got off to a disastrous start, as Evan Rodrigues made a nice move to get by Radim Simek on a rush and beat James Reimer with a nice shot only a minute into the game. Then just two minutes later, Jake Guentzel took a pass from Bryan Rust and he managed to sneak a shot through Reimer. Pittsburgh wasn’t done there, as Danton Heinen put a nice pass to Rodrigues who went to the backhand to beat Reimer for his second goal of the game. Then two minutes after that, Bryan Rust took a loose puck in front and put a shot through Reimer, making it 4-0 Penguins just over six minutes into the game.
The Sharks got one back later, with Alexander Barabanov knocking down a puck and tucking it past Casey DeSmith, but Kasper Bjorkvist scored his first NHL goal later in the frame and Bryan Rust made it 6-1 before the period was through.
Needless to say, it was an absolute disaster of a first period, with San Jose getting off to just about the worst start possible. James Reimer didn’t get much help but he was also terrible and couldn’t stop pucks that were put right at him.
Zach Sawchenko came in for the second period and made some nice saves to help stop the bleeding. While the Sharks did still give up quality chances in the second frame, they managed to pick up a second goal from Brent Burns, who got a hard shot through traffic on a power play.
The third period was where things got interesting. Just 20 seconds into the frame, Matt Nieto took a shot that missed the net but Casey DeSmith completely mishandled the bounce back off the boards and knocked it into his own net. Then a few minutes after that, Erik Karlsson managed to find the net with a point shot through traffic, pulling the Sharks to within two goals. San Jose wasn’t done there, as Timo Meier put a cross-crease pass to Logan Couture who scored on the open net before DeSmith could get over.
Just four minutes into the third period, the Sharks registered three goals, bringing it back to a 6-5 game with lots of time to go.
After that, we saw a bit of a back-and-forth third period, which was entertaining at the very least. DeSmith looked so shaky throughout the period that it seemed like anything that went on net had a chance to go in.
However, Matt Nieto took a late penalty and the Penguins capitalized to increase the lead to 7-5, with Rodrigues picking a corner for his first NHL hat trick. Then with just about 10 seconds remaining, Bryan Rust picked up a hat trick of his own, scoring on an empty net.
While the Sharks tried hard to battle back, you’re rarely going to be able to recover when you go down five goals in the first period. In all fairness, while the score ended up decently close and the Sharks certainly got their share of chances, they also just weren’t the better team. DeSmith had a poor night to allow the goals he did (though the same could certainly be said about Reimer).
Huge credit to Zach Sawchenko, who came into the game for the back 40 minutes in what was his first NHL game. He played great and while I'm not sure that his performance will warrant much more action with the team in the immediate future, he was impressive in the loss.
The Sharks’ next game will come on Tuesday against the Detroit Red Wings.
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