Sharks still stuck ‘chasing the game' as losing streak reaches seven

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SAN JOSE -- Suffice to say, the Sharks have a list of things they need to work on with just five games left in the regular season and a losing streak they just can’t snap. One of them is how they’ve been starting off games -- the problem of getting behind on the scoreboard and then having trouble reacting.

“That’s probably the thing we’ve struggled with most as a group all year,” Sharks head coach Peter DeBoer said earlier this week. “Our reaction to getting behind in games. It’s usually to open it up and take chances, and it’s bitten us almost every time we’ve done it.”

In the most recent four contests of their current seven-game losing skid, San Jose has given up the first goal. In their game against the Detroit Red Wings on Monday evening, the Sharks allowed the first goal 38 seconds into the first frame. In Thursday's 5-4 loss to the Blackhawks, Team Teal found themselves in a 2-0 hole just a little over six minutes into the game. While their response in the second period to tie the score up 4-4 showed improvement in their game, the Sharks have to be ready from the drop of the puck. Over their last few games, that just isn’t happening. 

“We have to figure out how to start early and start with the lead,” Tomas Hertl said after Thursday's loss. “Having the lead is better to play in than hunting down every game.”

He isn’t wrong. Giving up the first goal early has put an already-struggling Sharks team on their heels and in a position where they haven’t fared so well this season. They are 12-18-4 when the opposition scores first and 5-14-3 when trailing after the first period. While getting the first goal doesn’t always lead to a win -- see San Jose’s last game against Vegas -- it definitely provides an advantage. But yet again on Thursday, San Jose fell behind early.

“Same story, we’re chasing the game the rest of the night,” DeBoer said after the loss to the Blackhawks, although he acknowledged he liked how the team clawed their way back in the second period. “I thought we did a good job battling back to 4-4, and then they get that fifth goal. They throw it to the net -- got to find a way to get a stick on it. It’s one of those times right now. It’s one of those times right now where everything that can go wrong is going wrong.”

Taking penalties early in the first frame didn’t help the Sharks’ start, either. Chicago scored their first goal on the evening on a five-on-three just a little over three minutes into the game. San Jose didn’t go to the box again after that, but the two early trips were enough to give the Blackhawks the momentum.

“It’s tough, you never want to go down 1-0,” Logan Couture said. “After that, I think we could have responded better.”

Getting off to another rough start is certainly worrisome with the back-to-back San Jose has on their schedule this upcoming weekend against the Golden Knights -- San Jose’s likely opponent in the first round of the playoffs -- and the Flames. But all the Sharks can do at this point is get back out there and keep grinding.

“We’ve got to come back to work tomorrow and figure it out,” Couture said. “There’s no easy recipe for getting out of slumps like this. In this league, every team goes through times like this. It’s who gets out of it the quickest and who comes out of it the proper way. That’s what we’re working to do.”

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