Tag: Frank Vatrano

Sharks Fall 3-2 in OT, Vlasic Scores Third Game in a Row

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The San Jose Sharks center Nico Sturm (7) gets to the door step but can’t score on Anaheim Ducks goaltender Josh Gibson (36) in the second period at the Honda Center in Anaheim on Wed Jan 31, 2024 (AP News photo)

By Mary Walsh

The San Jose Sharks were defeated in overtime 3-2 by the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Isac Lundestrom, Troy Terry and Frank Vatrano scored for the Ducks. John Gibson made 26 saves for the win. Anthony Duclair and Marc-Edouard Vlasic scored for the Sharks. Kaapo Kahkonen made 31 saves in the loss.

The Sharks had a lead through most of the game. To lose after that had to be frustrating. After the game, Sharks Captain Logan Couture said “I thought we were the better team for a lot of the game but third period they kind of took over. They had a lot of looks, we looked tired at the end there.”

Sharks Head Coach David Quinn said that the team is playing well now, despite this loss: “The one thing that you feel good about right now is how we’re playing now and our compete and we’re not giving up a lot of goals and just overall playing better hockey.”

Anaheim celebrated as if they had scored at 1:58 of the first period. But the whistle had blown and the puck only went into the net as Kahkonen was pushed in as well.

Less than 20 seconds later, the Ducks did score. Isac Lundestrom slipped behind the defense and scored with a wrist shot at 2:12. Assists went to Mason McTavish and Jakob Silfverberg

Anthony Duclair tied the game with a power play goal at 6:59. Shakir Mukhamadullin took a slap shot from the blue line and Duclair caught the rebound. Assists went to Mukhamadullin and Mike Hoffman. That was Mukhamadullin’s first NHL point in his third game.

Marc-Edouard Vlasic scored from the blue line with a slap shot at 17:57 of the second. Assists went to Kyle Burroughs and William Eklund. The goal extended Vlasic’s goal streak to three games.

With the Ducks net empty, Troy Terry tied the game at 18:59 of the third period. With a scrum in front of the net, Terry found the puck and put it in. Assists went to Leo Carlsson and Adam Henrique.

Frank Vatrano scored the overtime winner 4:07 into overtime. His wrist shot went past Kahkonen’s blocker as the goaltender tried moved across the goal mouth.

The Sharks were out-shot 34-28 by the Ducks. In the face-off circle, they won 45.5% of the draws. Alexander Barabanov was injured half way through the game. After the game, Quinn said that he did not believe the injury was “too serious.”

The Sharks next play on February 14 at 4:30 PM PT in Winnipeg against the Jets.

Sharks Fall 4-1 to Ducks; SJ has now dropped two straight

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The San Jose Sharks Mike Ferraro (38) skates with the puck in front of the Anaheim Ducks Troy Terry (19) during the first period at the Honda Center in Anaheim on Nov 12, 2023 (AP News photo)

By Mary Walsh

The San Jose Sharks lost to the Anaheim Ducks 4-1 on Sunday. Frank Vatrano scored twice for Anaheim, and Mason McTavish and Radko Gudas added two more. John Gibson made 25 saves for the win. Luke Kunin scored for San Jose and Mackenzie Blackwood made 40 saves in the loss.

The Sharks had two power plays in the game, and three shots with the man advantage. After the game, Sharks Head Coach David Quinn talked about the Sharks’ struggling power play:

“They get the power play goal late in the first, make it 2-1, and then we get our power plays and it just really deflated us. I mean really, you know, not a lot of pace, not a lot of urgency to our power play right now. You know, you may not score but you need to gain some momentum off your power play and that’s not happening right now.”

Tomas Hertl also talked about what the Sharks need to do to fix their power play: “We have to just try to shoot through and get some rebounds, some greasy goals more than fancy and we have to keep working on it.”

Anaheim scored first 4:49 into the game. Frank Vatrano tipped a shot from Ilya Lyubushkin. Ryan Strome got the secondary assist. It was Vatrano’s tenth goal of the season.

Luke Kunin tied the game at 13:05. After Tomas Hertl shot the puck in, it bounced up in a high rebound and Kunin batted it down and into the net. Assists went to Hertl and William Eklund. It was Kunin’s second goal of the season.

Vatrano scored his second of the game with a slap shot off a Cam Fowler pass. The power play goal came at 18:22, giving Ahamein at 2-1 lead. Assists went to Fowler and Jakob Silfverberg.

A scoreless second period saw the Sharks have their best shot count of the game, with 12 to the Ducks’ 18. the period saw a number of penalties, including a fight between Luke Kunin and Max Jones.

Mason McTavish made it 3-1 1:52 into the third period. Skating right down the slot, he caught a pass from Leo Carlsson right in front of the blue paint. Assists went to Carlsson and Pavel Mintyukov.

Radko Gudas made it 4-1 just under a minute later. A crazy high-flying puck went up well out of reach of any defenseman and dropped behind Blackwood, who did not realize it was in the air. Assists went to Strome and Vatrano.

The Sharks’ penalty kill gave up two goals on five Ducks power plays. They also had two short-handed shots in the game.

The Sharks next play on Tuesday back in San Jose at 7:30 PM PT against the Florida Panthers.

Sharks Fall 3-2 in OT to Panthers, Reimer Returns

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Florida Panthers center Frank Vatrano (77) jumps into the arms of his teammates at the SAP Center in San Jose after scoring a goal in overtime to win a narrow contest against the San Jose Sharks on Tue Mar 15, 2022 (AP News photo)

By Mary Walsh

SAN JOSE- The San Jose Sharks fell to the Florida Panthers 3-2 in overtime on Tuesday. Frank Vatrano scored twice, including the game winner, and Jonathan Huberdeau scored once for Florida. Spencer Knight made 24 saves for the win.

Logan Couture and Nicolas Meloche scored for San Jose and James Reimer made 31 saves in the loss. Joe Thornton, in his first return to the Shark Tank, had 10:03 of ice time for Florida.

The Sharks took the lead at 8:19 of the first period, on the power play. Tomas Hertl moved the puck up from below the goal line and Logan Couture redirected it in. Assists went to Hertl and Timo Meier. During the penalty kill, Florida’s Gustav Forsling blocked a shot with his ankle. He stayed down for a bit, made it to his feet, but had to be helped off the ice after the goal. He was out for the rest of the period but came back for the second.

Jonathan Huberdeau tied the game with a short-handed goal at 11:21. He intercepted a pass to nobody in the defensive zone, carried the puck to the other end, two-on-one. He didn’t have a pass so he took the the shot. It was the ninth short-handed goal of the season for Florida.

Nicolas Meloche got the lead back for the Sharks at 13:58. Marc-Edouard Vlasic caught up with a puck on its way out, whipped it back to Hertl, who passed it right on to Meloche. Meloche had some speed as he was moving into the zone and his shot zipped by Knight on the glove side.

Tomas Hertl had a chance to make it 3-1 near the end of the second period but it went off of the near post. That had to sting as he was in pretty close to miss that one.

The Panthers tied it again at 3:29 of the third with a goal from Frank Vatrano. Noel Acciari intercepted a clearing attempt by Logan Couture and centered the puck for Vatrano to rifle past Reimer.

The Panthers put the puck in the net at 8:52 but the Sharks challenged it for goaltender interference. Mason Marchment carried the puck in and took the shot but in the process he knocked both Eetu Luostarinen and Marc-Edouard Vlasic into Reimer. The goal was called back.

For the second time this season, the Panthers beat the Sharks in overtime. Frank Vatrano scored at 1:11 with a slapshot from high in the slot. An assists went to Gustav Forsling and Sam Reinhart.

The Sharks out-shot the Panthers 11-7 in the first and 12-9 in the scoreless second. In the third, the Panthers out-shot the Sharks by wide margin, 16-3. The Panthers spent a lot of time in the penalty box in the first two periods. The Sharks had to kill two penalties in the game, while the Panthers had to kill five, including some five-on-three time. The teams played four-on-four twice in the second period.

In all, the Sharks power play got eleven shots and one goal. The Panthers power play got four shots, but their penalty kill got two shots and a goal. The Sharks prevailed in face-offs, winning 55% of the draws, though they were better in the first two periods, winning 61% and 75%.

The Sharks next play on Thursday in Los Angeles against the Kings at 7:00 PM PT.

Sharks Power Play Scores, Still Lose 5-1 to Panthers

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Photo credit: @SanJoseSharks

By Mary Walsh

The San Jose Sharks lost 5-1 to the Florida Panthers Sunday at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Florida. Panthers goals came from Keith Yandle, Aleksander Barkov, Mike Matheson, Brett Connolly and Frank Vatrano. Their goaltender, Sergei Bobrovsky, made 30 saves for the win. The Sharks goal was scored by Kevin Labanc, the team’s first power play goal in 23 tries. Martin Jones made 28 saves in the loss.

After the game, Labanc said:

Today, we were working we just weren’t scoring so it sucks. Like I said, I mean we’re getting a ton of chances but we’re just not capitalizing on them. And… just… it’s all in the detail of the game and it’s not that they’re a better team than us it’s just that we’re making more mistakes.

Sharks forward Evander Kane, who sat out for a period’s worth of penalties, said: “I think we’re a little too relaxed right now. A couple games, that we’re off to bad starts and we didn’t really fight back and we didn’t really have much fight back after we got down so that’s really the most disappointing part.”

Sharks head coach Peter DeBoer identified goaltending and special teams as the problem in Sunday’s game:

I thought we hung in there and, you know, kept fighting but you know it wasn’t enough. And, you know, their goalie was better, their special teams were better tonight than ours. That was probably the story. I thought five-on-five we probably carried a lot of the play but, those two areas, they were better than us.

The Panthers started the scoring on a power play at 4:15 of the first. Kevin Labanc was in the box for hooking. Jonathan Huberdeau’s pass up the boards found Keith Yandle for a shot from the blue line. Assists went to Huberdeau and Aleksander Barkov.

Barkov scored the next one at 8:15, putting the Panthers up 2-0. The Panthers entered the zone three-on-two with Erik Karlsson and Marc-Edouard Vlasic defending. With Karlsson covering Keith Yandle but letting Barkov slip by at the last moment. Evgenii Dadonov was the puck carrier and he sent the puck to the net for Barkov to tap in. Assists went to Dadonov and Huberdeau.

Kevin Labanc made up for his penalty with a power play goal at 10:13. Labanc took a pass from Erik Karlsson up near the blue line and took the shot from above the face-off circle. The puck went up over Bobrovsky’s shoulder as Timo Meier was blocking the goaltender’s view. Assists went to Karlsson and Evander Kane. The goal ended a scoreless streak 23 power plays long for San Jose.

The Panthers out-shot the Sharks 12-9 in the first period.

Florida scored again on the power play at 6:32 of the second period. With Brett Connolly in the goaltender’s eyes, Mike Matheson took a shot from the blue line that made its way all the way in. Assists went to Aaron Ekblad and Frank Vatrano.

Just 4:16 into the second period, Evander Kane was given multiple penalties for fighting, instigation and misconduct. That all resulted from his response to a hit from behind. The penalties put him out of play for the rest of the period and the start of the third. After the game, Kane was asked about the incident and said: “A guy hits me in the head and no call, you know, you gotta protect yourself. Nobody else is gonna protect you on the ice, not the refs, not the other team, so sometimes you gotta stick up for yourself.”

At the end of the second period, the Panthers took an interference penalty that put the Sharks on the power play for almost a minute of the third period. Seconds into the third, the Panthers took a delay of game penalty, giving the Sharks a brief two-man advantage. That was not enough and the Sharks finished those power plays still down 3-1.

Brenden Dillon went to the penalty box for four minutes, two for high-sticking and two for slashing. The penalties came shortly after a slash that Huberdeau delivered to Dillon earlier that was not called.

The score quickly became 4-1 on the next Panthers power play. Mike Hoffman’s shot from the blue line created a rebound that Connolly was able to put in the net despite losing his footing in front of Martin Jones. Assists went to Hoffman and Keith Yandle.

The Sharks pulled their goaltender with just over two minutes to go and Frank Vatrano put the puck in the net a little over 30 seconds later. Assists went to Mackenkie Weegar and Aaron Ekblad.

The Sharks continue their road trip with a game in Nashville on Tuesday against the Predators at 5:00 PM PT.

The Sharks will be without one of their regular defensemen, Radim Simek, for about two weeks as he is undergoing a surgical procedure.