by Ivan Makarov

SAN JOSE–There is definitely a lack of production on the San Jose Sharks right now who just dropped their fourth straight game and their third at home. The Sharks also lost two of those games on shootouts. The defense is not doing great either and they had some goaltenders they faced who stopped a lot of chances for them. They have skaters who can’t score goals and there aren’t a lot of goals to win games.

What happened is the season started well for the Sharks and all four lines were scoring and now there’s a bit of a dry spell from the bottom two lines and also from Patrick Marleau and Logan Courture have gone through a dry spell with five or six games without goals. The Sharks finally broke through in the game against the Coyotes Sat Nov 22 but it wasn’t enough for the Sharks which they lost by a goal 4-3.

They really need to have their third and fourth lines step up and score some goals again, the Coyotes goaltender Devan Dubnyk stopped 40 goals last Saturday and that’s not helping San Jose and that happens that’s part of the game and the Sharks have to overcome it and they have to find ways to score goals and the Sharks aren’t able to do so.

The game against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday night which they got shutout 2-0 Flames goaltender Karri Ramo stopped all 32 shots against to shutout the home team at SAP Center. The Sharks have been shooting from the perimeter rather than getting close to the net or shooting from the blue line. The shots against Sharks goalie Antti Niemi are getting through pretty easy for Calgary as the Flames Jiri Hudler put on a one man show scoring both goals on Wednesday night for the 2-0 win.

Niemi has had a pretty good season so far 2.58 goals against, his numbers are there and he’s won a few games that they didn’t deserve to win. Niemi is one player that is hard to really accuse him of any thing right now. Sharks back up goalie Alex Stalock could have taken the start from Niemi because he had a good season last year but has been playing below average.

Stalock went out with injuries and the Sharks had called up another guy from Worcester who went down with injuries and so the Sharks had to call up a local guy from San Jose Ryan Lowe. The Sharks woes continue as the other backup goalie Troy Groesnick got an upper body injury during the morning skate Wednesday and sat out.

Lowe sat on the bench and didn’t see any action and was ready for the call of duty. Lowe is local and played college hockey at San Jose State. Lowe played hockey in an Australian league. The Sharks continue to have backup issues in net. Niemi for the most part has been good so far.

The Sharks have been a bit unlucky and there has been a lot of chatter about trading Marleau but Marleau has done the best that he could so prove that he belongs and be a leader on the team. Joe Thornton has been doing a lot better after he lost his captaincy at the beginning of this season and leads the team with 20 assists and has said that he wants to get it back.

The Sharks are now .500 at 10-10-4 a position that is very foreign to them as they have always been on the top at this time of the year in the Pacific but are battling to stay in the race. The Sharks host the Anaheim Ducks this Saturday night at 7:30pm.

Ivan Makarov hosts Sportstalk and is a beat writer covering San Jose Sharks hockey for http://www.sportsradioservice.com