Sharks lose Game 4, 6-3 to the Blues

In this round, Joe Thornton’s line has spent the bulk of its time in St. Louis’ end, creating chances, drawing penalties and getting three even-strength goals from Hertl.

“We put our top-scoring players out there in this series so far and we’ve not been able to maintain pressure in the offensive zone,” Hitchcock said. “We’ve ended up in our zone quickly sometimes. That’s something that no one’s done against us. We’ve been able to take top players and hem them in, frustrate them. For whatever reason, we cannot control the play, even though we start 200 feet from our net. So that’s on me. I’m going to have to change tactics, do something completely different than we’ve done in the first two series because within 10 seconds in most occasions, they’re in our zone.”

Slowing down Thornton’s line could help St. Louis create more chances at the other end.

The Blues have been shut out by Martin Jones the past two games and haven’t gotten a single point all series from 40-goal scorer Vladimir Tarasenko or rookie Robby Fabbri, who had 13 points the first two rounds.

“We just haven’t created enough quality chances to really test him and make him make save after save, what we can do when we’re really on our game,” captain David Backes said. “The result has been a couple scoreless games for us. It’s not the way we’re going to win games. We need to get back onto our method and our ways. When we do that, we’re going to have success.”