Tag: Adam Larsson

Sharks Dragged Down by Kraken, Lose 4-1; For SJ two straight loses

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San Jose Sharks Macklin Celebrini’s expression says it all as the Sharks in the second period at 3:03 are getting beat by the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle on Sat Nov 15, 2025 (San Jose Sharks still photo)

By Mary Walsh

The San Jose Sharks (8-8-3) fell to the Seattle Kraken (9-4-5) 4-1 on Saturday. Jaden Schwartz, Adam Larsson and Eeli Tolvanen scored for Seattle. Philip Grubauer made 19 saves for the win. Alexander Wennberg scored for the Sharks and Alex Nedeljkovic made 20 saves in the loss.

The Sharks looked much faster and better than their last game but still could not score as needed. After the game, Sharks forward Will Smith said: “We were moving, we had a bunch of chances. It was just one of those nights.”

Jaden Schwartz gave the Kraken a lead midway through the first period. Chandler Stephenson carried the puck in and sent it through the crease where it hit Schwartz’s skate and bounced back into the net. Assists went to Stephenson and Jamie Oleksiak.

The Sharks tied the game with a power play goal at 19:42. Alexander Wennberg redirected Macklin Celenrini’s shot from the right side. Assists went to Celebrini and William Eklund.

Matt Murray left the game at the end of the first period, right after the Sharks goal. He appeared to have a lower body injury. The Sharks had 7 shots in the first and the Kraken had 6. The Kraken took the only penalty.

Will Smith almost gave the Sharks a lead midway through the second period, but his goal was waived off for a kicking motion while sliding into the net.

The Kraken’s Adam Larsson did give his team the lead at 16:05. Larsson took the shot from just below the blue line through traffic. Assists went to Mason Marchment and Matty Beniers.

38 seconds later, Eeli Tolvanen scored to make it 3-1 Kraken. His shot came in a two-on-one with Stephenson.

The Sharks outshot the Kraken 14-10 in the second period. The Kraken took two penalties and the Sharks took one.

During their third power play in the third period, the Sharks pulled their goaltender. Jaden Schwartz shot the puck into the empty net to make it 4-1. Ryan Lindgren got an assist on that goal.

The Sharks next play on Tuesday at 7:00 PM PT in San Jose against the visiting Utah Mammoth.

Kraken Sink Sharks 7-1; San Jose drops fifth out of last six games

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The Seattle Karken’s defenseman Will Borgen (3) gets in front of the San Jose Sharks (left winger) Anthony DuClair (10) in first period action at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle on Wed Nov 22, 2023 (AP News photo)

By Mary Walsh

The San Jose Sharks fell 7-1 to the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena on Wednesday. Seattle goals were scored by Brandon Tanev, Oliver Bjorstrand, Adam Larsson, Yanni Gourde, Jared and McCann, with two goals from Eeli Tolvanen. Joey Daccord made 13 saves for the win. Mike Hoffman scored for the Sharks, Kaapo Kahkonen started the game and made 13 saves on 17 shots. Mackenzie Blackwood came in to finish and made 10 saves on 13 shots.

The Sharks had eight defensemen in the lineup, due to unavailable forwards. Kevin Labanc was out due to an injury sustained in Monday’s game. Nico Sturm was away for personal reasons. Still injured are Logan Couture, Oskar Lindblom and Alexander Barabanov. Although the team used eight defensemen, Marc-Edouard Vlasic was a scratch.

After the game, Anthony Duclair was asked if the team’s poor performance was a result of the missing regulars. He said: “Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter who’s in the lineup, you gotta compete. You’re in the NHL, you gotta compete and if you don’t compete that’s what’s gonna happen in the first period. It doesn’t matter who’s in the lineup, everybody has to be ready to go and it cost us.”

The first period was the worst for the Sharks. They gave up four goals, and but for an off-side call, it would have been five. The Sharks managed seven shots in the period but allowed seventeen to the Kraken.

“We can’t start a game like that in the NHL, you’re going to get embarrassed. We’ve been embarrassed before this season but nothing like the first period today. That was just unacceptable,” said Duclair. Asked what went wrong for the team, he said: “We just got out-competed, that’s not the xs and os, it’s win battles and losing battles one v one all over the ice and it cost us.”

Sharks Head Coach David Quinn went into more detail:

“Embarrassing. We weren’t ready to play. Two break aways in the first minute and a half. I mean just absolutely freaking embarrassing. We lost every single battle, got beat off walls every time there was a 50/50 puck battle we’re fishing for pucks get on the wrong side of it. One guy would get beat one on one and the other guy would dive in.”

In light of that start, the second period might have been worse. The Kraken only had four shots, but they had a four goal lead. The Sharks, trailing as they were, still had just one shot in the period. The total shot count for the game was 30-14 Kraken. The Sharks even had an unusually bad night in the face-off circle. Though they were missing Nico Sturm, their second best in that department, the rest of the team’s top three were present. Still, the Sharks won just 48% of the draws.

Quinn was asked if Wednesday’s performance was a symptom of the team being fragile this season. Quinn seemed out of patience with that excuse:

“I don’t want to hear about freakin fragile, okay? It’s the National freakin Hockey League and you better show up ready to play every freakin night. I don’t care about fragile, sometimes you don’t have it, I get it, but you want to show up and play with the right freakin intentions and we didn’t do it.”

The Sharks will next play on Friday at 12:30 PM PT against the Montreal Canadiens in San Jose.

Sharks Shutout 3-0 by Kraken in Game 82

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Seattle Kraken center Morgan Geekie (67) looks to pass the puck against San Jose Sharks defenseman Brent Burns (88) at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle on Fri Apr 29, 2022 (AP News photo)

By Mary Lisa Walsh

The San Jose Sharks were shutout 3-0 by the Seattle Kraken in the Sharks final game of the 2021-22 season. Yanni Gourde, Adam Larsson and Viktor Rask scored for the Kraken. Chris Driedger made 24 saves for the shut-out win. Kaapo Kahkonen made 28 saves in the loss.

After that game, Sharks Head Coach Bob Boughner said of the game: “We just couldn’t get it done tonight. I think you could probably see, it’s no secret, there wasn’t a lot of guys who were sharp.”

Boughner also talked about the season as a whole and what comes next:

“For us, it’s just trying to relish the good times that we’ve had this year and I think there has been plenty of them. I think we know we’re not in the spot that we want to be and we know there’s a ton of improvement and that’s on everybody. That’s not on the players, it’s not just on the players and the coaches it’s everybody. We’ll address that but I think everybody needs a little time away to decompress first.”

Yanni Gourde scored his 21st goal of the season to give the Kraken the lead at 6:17. Dennis Cholowski led the play into the zone up the middle, then passed the puck to Karson Kuhlman on the right wing. Kulman passed it back to Gourde who was trailing Cholowski. As Cholowski screened Kahkonen, Gourde took the shot.

Adam Larsson made it 2-0 at 18:31. Jamie Oleksiak had the puck deep along the right wall and passed it up to Matty Beniers at the point. Beniers made a quick pass to Larsson on the left wing and he scored with a one-timer.

Victor Rask scored into an empty net to make it 3-0 at 19:08 of the third period. Assists went to Riley Sheahan and Will Borgen.

Timo Meier finished the season by blocking a shot to stop an empty net goal at the end of the game.

The Sharks took just one penalty and gave up three shots to the Kraken power play. The Kraken took two penalties close together in the second period, giving the Sharks a five-on-three for a little over a minute. The Sharks got three shots during that power play. In the first period, the Sharks were out-shot 12-4, but bounced back in the second with 11 shots, allowing just six. They lagged again in the third, being out-shot 13-9. The Kraken prevailed in the face-off circle at 58%.

Lane Pedersen was back in the lineup for a last look of the season. He had one shot, one hit and was 40% in the face-off circle in 9:53 of ice time. Jonathan Dahlen was also in the game Friday. He had one blocked shot in 7:32 of ice time.

The Sharks will start next season in Prague, Czech Republic. They will face the Nashville Predators in a pair of games October 7 and 8 as part of the 2022 NHL Global Series.