San Jose Sharks netminder James Reimer (47) was kept busy facing 21 shots and allowing seven goals against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena in Vancouver on Thu Mar 23, 2023 (Canadian Press via AP News photo)

By Torben Rolfsen

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA –The Shark tank continued at Rogers Arena in Vancouver as San Jose (19-38-15) lost 7-2 to the host Canucks (32-34-5) to inch ever closer to the best lottery odds in what promises to be one of the most talent-filled drafts in NHL history. The Sharks are now winless in their last eight games and have just one victory since February 20th.

The Canucks opened the scoring at 6:15 of the first on a horrible giveaway by Tomas Hertl as he passed it directly to J.T. Miller in his own zone, who buried it past Sharks goaltender James Reimer for his 29th of the season and fourth in three games. Andrei Kuzmenko scored for the Canucks two minutes later before Hertl replied with his 20th of the season shortly after.

The assists went to Erik Karlsson and Jacob Peterson, with his first point as a Shark. After an impressive long stretch of 5-on-5 pressure by San Jose in the Canucks zone late in the period, they reverted to being the Sharks before the buzzer as Dakota Joshua scored for Vancouver with just 4/10ths of a second left after some pretty passing on the fly by the Canucks got them through the Sharks D.

San Jose didn’t fare much better in the second, showing little power play life against Vancouver’s dead-last-in-the-NHL penalty kill. Reimer gave up a big rebound – one of many – a little past the halfway mark of the game, which a left-alone-on-the-doorstep Conor Garland easily tapped in to make it 4-1.

The teams woke up the crowd with a quick flurry of goals in the middle of the third frame: The Sharks Andrew Agozzino scored shorthanded (with his first of the year in just his second game) on a nice snapshot before the Canucks quickly answered back with goals by Vasily Podkolzin and Phillip Di Giuseppe.

Vancouver’s Sheldon Dries scored a late shorthanded goal with under ten seconds left. The low-shots game wound up 21-19 in Vancouver’s favor. The Sharks conclude their 3-game western Canadian road swing in Calgary Saturday night before returning home to face the Winnipeg Jets Tuesday and the Vegas Golden Knights next Thursday.