Sharks won’t ‘hit panic button’ after Game 1 drubbing by Knights
There was no denying the ugliness of the 7-0 shellacking San Jose took in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals.
The Sharks weren’t about to dwell on the debacle as they returned to the same sheet of ice to practice on Friday morning.
“It’s not the first time I’ve had a game like that and it’s probably going to happen again at some point,” goaltender Martin Jones said a day after he was yanked following the fifth Golden Knights goal early in the second period. “You’ve just got to move on and get the next one.
“We went through video and there’s some stuff we need to correct, but we’re certainly not going to hit the panic button after one bad game. We believe in what we’re doing and we’re going to stick with it.”
The Sharks spent more time than usual going over what went wrong Thursday night at T-Mobile Arena, which coach Peter DeBoer referred to as a “laundry list” of problems.
That list got longer Friday when forward Evander Kane was suspended for Game 2 for a cross-check to the head of Pierre-Edouard Bellemare that had earned him an ejection from Game 1.
Even with Kane, the Sharks knew they faced an uphill climb. Still, DeBoer believes his team is equipped well to deal with it.
“I told the guys this is the first adversity we’ve faced in these playoffs,” he said. “You knew it was coming. You never know what it’s going to look like. It can be a double-overtime loss, you could have a parade to the penalty box of unwarranted penalties, it can look a lot of different ways. You could have injuries, you just don’t know. But you have to expect it’s coming at some point, manage it, and be prepared to bounce back and I think our group is really good at that.
“We’ve got a lot of pride and a lot of character. This series is a long way from over.”
DeBoer acknowledged a final score like that in the playoffs jumps off the page.
“We’ve played as poorly as we did last night before. It’s not the worst game in the history of San Jose Sharks,” he said. “It might be on the scoreboard in playoff history, I think one of you guys wrote, but I don’t think it’s the worst game in the history of hockey. It got away from us. They got seven goals and we didn’t get any. It was ugly, but we’ve played poorly before.
“We’ll get it back.”
San Jose has been down before. The Sharks are 5-12 all-time when losing the first game of a playoff series.
A loss in Game 2 could be devastating, however, as San Jose is 0-11 all-time when trailing 2-0.
“They’re a fast team, but we’ve played fast teams and we’ve had success against fast teams,” DeBoer said. “We didn’t do what we needed to do. We didn’t manage the puck, we didn’t control the neutral zone properly with routes and beyond that we just didn’t win enough battles when you take the Xs and Os out of the game. They were the hungrier team, too. That’s a recipe for disaster and that’s what we got.”
Captain Joe Pavelski said: “You can’t just flush it right away. You have to learn from it. The biggest takeaway is that we weren’t ourselves. We had to see it and now it’s up to us to flush that game and get back to where we need to be.”
Thornton still out
Sharks veteran Joe Thornton will miss Game 2, according to DeBoer.
Thornton has missed 40 games with a right knee injury, but did participate in Friday’s practice and was in a white jersey instead of an orange, which indicated he wasn’t cleared for contact.
“I’m day-to-day still,” Thornton said after practice.
“It just has to get a little bit stronger. It’s about working on the simple things like stopping and starting. It’s getting better, but nothing’s really changed.”
Forward Joonas Donskoi will play despite missing Friday’s practice. DeBoer called it a maintenance day.
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Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-277-8028. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.
