Sharks Surge but Fall to a Familiar Foe

Fresh off the heels of their 3-2 overtime victory over the St Louis Blues, the Sharks look to make it two in a row for the first time this season when they travel down to Orange County to take on the Ducks at the Honda Center. Tomas Hertl, returning to the ice after a stink on the covid-list, gets the party started making it 1-0. After a spirited, bloody bout featuring combatants Kurtis Gabriel and Nicolas Deslauriers, that really seems to breathe life into this team. Burns feeds Kane for a goal in the 2nd, Karlsson adds a tally of his own in the 3rd, along with Meier, LeBanc, and Handemark, scoring his 1st career NHL goal. Dubnyk is the star of the night with the shut-out on 35 saves. Mission accomplished: the Sharks indeed win two in a row for the first time all season with a 6-0 bludgeoning of the Ducks

In the second game of the series, we saw the Sharks continue their winning ways against the Ducks with a 3-1 victory. In the 1st, Evander Kane kicks off the scoring when he beat Ryan Miller off the rush for the early 1-0 score. Ducks come back early in the 2nd and tie it. Shortly afterward, Ferraro and Hertl combine to feed Lebanc for the 2-1 tally. In the 3rd, there's a scramble for the puck in front of the net when Dylan Gambrell tips it home for his first goal of the season and sends the Sharks off to their first bonafide win streak of the season at 3 games.

The Sharks next traveled to the desert to take on the familiar foe with the Vegas Golden Knights. Behind a rock-solid performance by Marc-Andre Fleury and enabled by a stingy officiating crew, the Knights get off to a 2-0 lead. That was before Timo Meier lights the lamp with 5 minutes left, and the Sharks finally received their first power play of the night with 20 seconds left in the game but unfortunately still come up short in the effort 2-1.

In the second game of the series, we see the Sharks do something that they have not been able to accomplish yet, and that's take a lead a game against Vegas when they went up 3-1. Only to see it quickly evaporate in a 3rd period meltdown with undisciplined and untimely penalties taken by their two top centers on the team, who decided it was time in the game for them to drop their gloves, something they are not accustomed to doing, both were assessed 5-minute fighting majors 3 minutes apart. This is a duty that should have been left to Kurtis Gabriel who was nowhere to be found. Sharks lose 5-4