After seeing his team get shut out for the fifth time this season and the fourth time at home, coach Bob Boughner says his San Jose Sharks must play with much more effort when they host the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night.
San Jose, playing for the first time in 13 days, was outshot 41-20 by the Edmonton Oilers in a 3-0 setback on Monday.
The Sharks are just 2-5-3 over their past 10 games and trailed the Los Angeles Kings by seven points for the final Western Conference playoff spot entering Wednesday’s action. The game with the Canucks begins a stretch of seven games in 12 days for San Jose.
“It’s response time, basically,” Boughner told the San Jose Mercury News after the team’s practice on Tuesday. “We could sit and fix some of the things we talked about today that happened (Monday), and we did, we had a hard practice. We practiced harder than we played (Monday).
“It shouldn’t take getting (angered) to have a better effort in practice than you do in the game.”
Boughner also said the Sharks, credited with just 16 hits in the loss, need to play a more physical brand of hockey.
“We didn’t give ourselves a chance, and I thought we could engage physically,” Boughner said. “I didn’t think we were physical enough on them. Waiting around for something to happen and seeing what kind of emotion there was going to be in the game instead of creating our own. That’s a problem where everybody was just dipping their toes in the water and no one dove in.
“We’re not going to (the crease) hard enough. We’re not getting enough pucks to the net. We had (31) shot attempts and we averaged 54, 55 a night. So that’s probably the worst I’ve seen all year of us just with the intent to shoot, number one. We don’t have enough guys sticking around the blue paint and when we get there, we leave.”
Vancouver is two points ahead of the Sharks in the Pacific Division standings and 14-6-4 since Bruce Boudreau took over for Travis Green on Dec. 6. Although currently on the outside looking in when it comes to a playoff spot, Boudreau says the team still believes it can make a strong playoff push in a bunched-up Pacific Division.
“I guarantee that in the coaches’ office there’s more than a glimmer of hope,” Boudreau said. “There’s belief. We’ve gone through all the scenarios that can happen and, in the end, it’s minimizing the thinking of too far ahead. Just worry about the game ahead of you and just win the week.”
The Canucks come in off a 3-2 victory over Toronto on Saturday. Thatcher Demko finished with a career-high 51 saves and J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser each had a goal and an assist.
Vancouver won despite getting outshot, 53-24, including 41-13 over the final two periods. Juho Lammikko scored what proved to be the game-winner late in the second period and Demko took over from there.
“I say the same thing every day, he’s one of the best goalies in the league,” Miller said. “He kept us in the game. It was a big two points for us.”
–Field Level Media