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Sharks Locker Room: A Lot of Winning Hockey Played in Losing Effort

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Credit: Dean Tait/Sport Shots

Ryan Warsofsky wanted to bottle up what the San Jose Sharks did in the second period of their 5-4 OT loss to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday.



The Sharks outshot the visitors 17-8 and outscored them 2-0 in the middle frame but sang the blues otherwise, St. Louis outshooting San Jose 32-12 elsewhere.

And the San Jose Sharks did bottle up the best of Thursday’s performance on Saturday, in a 2-0 loss to the Anaheim Ducks.

Under the hood, the Sharks played an excellent 5-on-5 game. Per Natural Stat Trick, San Jose outchanced Anaheim at high-danger 13-5 — that 72.2 percent share would’ve been the Sharks’ third-best 5-on-5 performance last year. San Jose played just 18 games last year where they outchanced the opposition 5-on-5 at high-danger.

The forecheck set the table for the Sharks to be better in every zone today.

Here’s an example of a play that probably wouldn’t have happened in the San Jose’s favor last year — focus on Ty Dellandrea (53) on the forecheck:

This stick from Dellandrea, deflecting the Brett Leason (20) pass, probably would not been there last year…or from another player, it would’ve been a couple inches short.

There’s a reason why the Sharks emphasized the additions of high-compete forecheckers like Dellandrea, Barclay Goodrow, and Carl Grundstrom, and a two-way center like Alex Wennberg to replace the likes of one-dimensional scorers like Anthony Duclair, Mike Hoffman, Filip Zadina, Kevin Labanc, and Alexander Barabanov in the line-up.

Warsofsky was highly complimentary of his fourth line, centered by Nico Sturm, and wingers Dellandrea and Grundstrom: “I thought Sturmey’s line was good on the forecheck for us.”

“It comes down to skating, willingness to skate. Forecheck is the hardest thing to do because it doesn’t always reap an immediate reward for yourself,” Sturm said.

Instead of Anaheim getting out on the rush, a professional effort by Dellandrea turns the play around, and San Jose enjoyed some Grade-A scoring chances.

“We found ourselves last year, and in the past, just a lot of forechecks that turn into rushes against, just not coming up with the puck,” Mario Ferraro said.

That Dellandrea play and the Sharks’ consistently disruptive forecheck was, dare I say it, winning hockey, which the Sharks were in short supply of last year.

Granted, this is just the fellow cellar-dwelling Ducks. But if the Sharks can reproduce this type of effort against better teams, they’re going to be in more games than they’re not this year.

Ryan Warsofsky

Warsofsky, if this is the best 60-minute effort that he’s seen from the San Jose Sharks so far, including preseason:

Yeah, for sure. I thought we played pretty well. Did a lot of good things, things that we’ve talked about from the start of training camp, from yesterday. So our guys are paying attention, and they’re starting to execute a little bit more. But in this league, one mistake will cost you a hockey game.

Warsofsky, on what happened on the Isac Lundestrom goal:

We don’t want to cross corner dumps, and then we just get caught in the outside with our defenseman.

Warsofsky, on the Sharks’ effective forecheck:

I thought Sturmey’s line was good on the forecheck for us.

We’re a team that can skate up front and can get on teams. I think Mike did a good job of bringing in some competitive players who can do those things.

Warsofsky, on Vitek Vanecek’s performance:

Really good. He looked like he was just calm in the net. Puck play was really good. He was almost like a third defenseman back there. He was good tonight.

He’s been good all training camp. Really put a lot of work in this offseason. Came here early, so he’s getting rewarded for it.

Nico Sturm

Sturm, on the San Jose Sharks’ forecheck:

It comes down to skating, willingness to skate. Forecheck is the hardest thing to do because it doesn’t always reap an immediate reward for yourself. You’re not always going to get the puck back. You’re not always going to get scoring chances.

But if you want to make their D turn every single time for the 60 minutes and get pucks back and you go through them and you put them through the boards every single time…Like I said, you might not reap the rewards in the first or second period, but as you go further down the stretch of the game, third period, at some point, you will get pucks back.

We’ve had a really hard training camp where skating was kind of the No. 1 priority for the whole group, not just forwards, d-men, everybody.

Obviously this last couple of years, other teams were kind of getting out of their zone a little bit too easy. I think especially their d-men. They would make the first touch, they would make the first play, and we wouldn’t even be close to their guy. They would go D-to-D, the first guy who made the first play would jump right by us, and he’d be up in the rush, and they’d have four guys in the rush.

Mario Ferraro

Ferraro, on the San Jose Sharks’ defensive effort:

I thought we did a good job of slowing down their speed.

Last year’s biggest problem was goals against, and we did a good job at preventing that. Now we just gotta find a way to score.

Ferraro, on the Sharks’ impactful forecheck:

I thought it helped us create some chances offensively. Just getting the pucks back, having the puck on our stick more times throughout the game, especially in the offensive zone.

We found ourselves last year, and in the past, just a lot of forechecks that turn into rushes against, just not coming up with the puck.

It just speaks to our identity today, how we play, just getting it behind their D and pressing on them. We played hard and we earned a lot of pucks back.

The forwards did a really good job of pressing. We had a much better F3 today, which helped our D to be able to gap up.

Ferraro, on the Sharks’ strong penalty kill:

I thought our penalty kill was on a roll tonight. I thought we did a really good job. Actually thought it gave us some momentum throughout the game. It’s a good change from last year.

A lot of what we’re doing is not too much different from what we were doing last year. We got a lot of guys in this room that take pride in what we do as penalty killers. Some guys that may not shine offensively as much, but we take pride on killing a penalty. I think that’s going to go a long way for us this year.

Ferraro, on missing Macklin Celebrini:

Mack, he’s a special player. He’s going to help us offensively. He’s going to help the confidence of the group, everything.

He’s a good person in the locker room.

He leads the charge too. He’s got a battery on him, and it’s fully charged. Obviously, we’re missing a special player in the line-up.

Vitek Vanecek

Vanecek, on his first regular season game, after groin surgery, since Feb. 10:

I felt really good. The team played really good too. We played good offensively and defensively. So they helped me a lot to feel confident.

 

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