By Matthew T.F. Harrington

photo credit: zimbio.com Colorado Avalanche vs. SJ Sharks

SAN JOSE, Calif. – The San Jose Sharks must have wished they were anywhere but home for the Holidays this year. After teams took a few days off for the Christmas break, the Sharks woes at the SAP Center continued Monday night in a penalty-filled 6-3 loss to the Colorado Avalanche. San Jose (17-16-2) is now 13-6-2 on the road but a dismal 4-10-0 within the Santa Clara County borders.

“It was the penalties,” said Sharks coach Pete DeBoer. “But also everything ended up in the back of our net.”

“Our penalty kill lacked an attention to detail,” added Sharks forward Tommy Wingels. “A couple days off will do that , but that’s not an excuse.”

The Colorado Avalanche (18-15-2) scored 4 of 6 goals on the power play, with forward Nate MacKinnon collecting a hat trick for the visitors from the Rocky Mountains. Carl Soderberg had a goal and two assists to join MacKinnon with three points. Patrick Marleau, Melker Karlsson and Tomas Hertl all scored for San Jose. Colorado netminder Calvin Picard made 35 saves for his first win of the season.

Colorado picked up its first goal of the night with Joe Thornton in the penalty box for a trip after killing off a Tomas Hertl infraction earlier in the period. MacKinnon took a perfect feed from Carl Soderberg and put the one-timer past Martin Jones for a 1-0 8:46 into the game. Before the goal San Jose had controlled most of the possession.

“When you’re taking hooking, tripping, holding penalties, you’re not moving your feet,” said DeBoer. “I liked our start. Our penalty kill took us out of the game”

The Sharks would again take control of the possession game and found the equalizer just 1:21 later in the period on a Joel Ward rush. Ward hit the trailing Marleau with a drop pass down the center lane that Marleau easily ripped over Pickard’s glove for his 14^th goal of the season.

The Sharks found themselves down a man once again 24 seconds after their goal, but managed to kill off Brendan Dillon’s minor penalty. They wouldn’t be so lucky when Paul Martin was caught with a blatant hook to Jack Skille at the 13:31 mark for San Jose’s 4^th penalty of the period.

Working into the slot 47 seconds into the power play, the Swedish Soderberg managed to position himself perfectly to tip a Francois Beauchemin shot past Jones for his 6^th goal of the year. Soderberg’s strike, assisted by John Mitchell as well, put Colorado up 2-1.

The calls going against San Jose started to fall for them in the 2^nd period. A Blake Comeau hook and a bench minor for too many men gave the Sharks their first two of three power plays of the game in the first 10 minutes of the frame. Despite peppering Pickard with shot after shot, they couldn’t find the equalizer. Instead it was Matt Duchene scoring on a no-look back-hander that gave the Avalanche a 3-1 edge with 8:41 left in the period.

After starting the game on the fourth line, Melker Karlsson earned his way up to the top line, joining Joe Pavelski on Joe Thornton’s wing. The European export lit the lamp for the 4^th time this season after taking one of Thornton’s patented passes from behind the net, burying the shot glove-side at the 13:58 mark of the frame.

“Five on five we were really good,” said San Jose defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic. “We had a lot a of chances. Now we have to bear down on some of our chances.”

Before the Sharks could carry over the momentum of the goal and a 17-9 2^nd period shot advantage, they found themselves facing another penalty kill in the 3^rd. Despite boasting the 6^th best penalty kill unit in the NHL, the Sharks showed why they ware 21^st in the league on the PK at home. Blake Comeau blasted a shot past Jones for the 4-2 advantage 7:09 into the period with Brent Burns in the sin bin.

Hertl pulled San Jose within one after curling around the Avs net and fire a turnaround wrister that through Pickard’s pads under a minute later. Again though, penalties turned the tide for the Sharks.

“It’s the flow of the game,” said WIngels. “I thought we did some good things but ultimately when you take too many penalties, when your attention to detail slips on the penalty kill, you get burned.”

Just 16 seconds after the Sharks’ third goal, Tommy Wingels would get the gate for hooking Duchene. MacKinnon punished the Sharks for their 6^th infraction of the game, roofing a cross-ice feed from Soderberg for his second goal of the game 8:44 into the third. He would add an empty net goal to complete the hat trick.

“You’re playing with fire any time you take that many penalties,” said DeBoer. “Obviously they had 4 power play goals. That was the difference of the game.”

When the Sharks welcome the Philadelphia Flyers to the SAP Center Wednesday they’ll be hoping to find what has eluded them so far at home this season.

“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be dominant at home,” said Wingels. “Your schedule is the same. There’s no excuses. We’ve tried some things. We’ve got to change it up. Ultimately it’s a mindset of getting it done.”

“If we knew what was wrong, we’d fix it,” stated Vlasic. “We’ve got to do it soon before we drop down even more.”