Sharks remain confident after frustrating loss to Canucks

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The Sharks can't seem to get out of their own way right now. 

Having lost five of their previous seven games, San Jose is running out of gas ahead of the Christmas break. 

Back-to-back losses against losing teams such as the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night and Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night have the Sharks sliding down the Western Conference standings. 

Thursday night's 5-2 loss to the Canucks at SAP Center was a game always within reach but missed opportunities allowed Vancouver to stave off any possible Sharks comeback. 

“I liked our start, liked our energy tonight," coach Bob Boughner said. "Thought we had good legs. We did concentrate on trying to put more pucks and bodies to the net. [Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko] is a top-end goalie and we just didn’t capitalize on our chances and they did, that’s really it.

"At the end of the game, I don’t think we played bad by any means, I thought we carried a lot of the possession on offense.”

Both Timo Meier and centerman Andrew Cogliano were the two Sharks who scored against Demko on Thursday night. 

Despite many frustrating losses lately, the Sharks are nowhere near ready to start scoreboard watching yet. Now is the portion of the season where teams are tested the most, and the results for San Jose have not looked great. Fortunately, there still are 52 games remaining this season. 

"We’re only a couple points back so nobody is pressing the panic button, that’s for sure," Boughner added. "We talk about winning these home games and putting ourselves in this position, the way we played tonight I felt good about our team, I felt good about the way we played. We didn’t execute, we didn’t capitalize. I thought we probably needed a save earlier that we didn’t get. Sometimes that’s demoralizing too when you’re sitting on the bench thinking you’re carrying a play and chasing a game.”

“Obviously our division has been playing pretty well all year but at the end of the day it’s about us, we can’t focus on what other teams are doing," Mario Ferraro told reporters. "We just have to play our game, shift-by-shift, every period counts. We can’t look at the standings, it’s a long season. There’s still 52 games left, so a lot of hockey. It’s a big opportunity for us to make some strides here so we can’t focus on other teams.”

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The Sharks' next game is not for five days, an opportunity to re-group and soul-search before facing the very same Canucks team next Tuesday back at SAP Center. 

“It’s important to learn from our mistakes and to re-group," Ferraro said. "I think it’s a good opportunity for us to reset. We’ve been working hard, we just haven’t really executed. I think it’s a really good opportunity for us to use this time to recover and get ready for next week.”

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