On September 13th, the Sharks acquired two-time Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson. For a team two years removed from a trip to the Stanley Cup Final who already had the 2017 winner of the same award occupying their blue line, the addition of Karlsson was supposed to push them over the top to win a championship. On May 21st, they were eliminated after dropping their third consecutive game to St. Louis. Sharks fans are once again forced to accept that their team fell short of their ultimate goal and are left to ask how this happened. So, I’ll try my best to answer that question.

Couldn’t contain St. Louis’ top line

Heading into the series, the Sharks should’ve had an advantage over St. Louis’ top line. Through the first two games, this held true. Logan Couture had four goals and an assist adding to his playoff leading 19 points. Couture was scorching hot and the top unit for St. Louis was ice cold. Vladimir Taresnko was on a five-game goalless streak and was coming off a -3 in game one. Tarasenko and his line mates Brayden Schenn and Jaden Schwartz were all minuses for the playoffs while Couture and his group were three of the highest Sharks in that category.

After San Jose’s game three win, everything changed. In the next three match ups, Tarasenko had two goals and three assists. Schwartz added a hat trick in game five, and in the following contest, Schenn scored the series dagger to put the Blues up 3-1. Meanwhile, Couture, Timo Meier, and Gustav Nyquist failed to score during that stretch. It was the first time this spring that Couture was held off the score sheet for consecutive games and the Sharks could not recover.

Sharks depth scoring fell silent

The Sharks were 3-10 during the playoffs when they scored 3 goals or less. Based on the performance of the top line in games four through six and the title of this subsection, you can probably guess when three of those losses came. Except for game one, where they scored six times, and three, which saw Erik Karlsson and Joe Thornton each bury a pair, the Sharks failed to get consistent offensive production from anyone in the lineup. Couture and Tomas Hertl carried the attack throughout the playoffs but when Couture got matched up against Blues’ d men Colton Parayko and Jay Bouwmeester, an adjustment coach Craig Berube made when the series shifted to St. Louis, no one picked up the slack.

In the Sharks’ three consecutive losses that the top line was held without a goal, the rest of the team combined for only two. Joonas Donskoi’s 4th line had six points the entire playoffs and he saw his own point total drop from 12 in the year they went to the Stanley Cup final, down to four. Melker Karlsson and Marcus Sorenson each failed to light the lamp in the three rounds San Jose played. Evander Kane might have been the most disappointing. Kane, who the Sharks traded for in 2018 to provide depth on the wing, failed to do just that. His 30 regular season goals dropped to two in the postseason and he had one assist in the six games against St. Louis.

Erik Karlsson’s ailing groin injury

When he’s on, Karlsson has a real case for being the best defenseman in the NHL. His fluid skating strides on top of his ability to move the puck combined with his overall hockey IQ, makes him a lethal weapon at both ends of the ice. But he’s had some trouble staying healthy during his career and 2019 was no different. He missed 29 games this year with a groin injury which he re-aggravated during game five causing him to miss the latter two periods and the following game six. Until game five, however, he appeared to be back, providing much needed offense through the first two rounds and the first three games, leading San Jose with 14 assists. His absence was felt greatly throughout the entire team when he was only able to play a little more than 10 minutes in game five’s 5-0 loss and had to completely miss game six. Without Karlsson, Joakim Ryan was thrown into the fire and while he was good at eating some of Karlsson’s minutes, he couldn’t provide the puck moving capability that the former Norris Trophy winner could.

Martin Jones did not get it done

Jones never became a glaring issue in net for San Jose. He wasn’t able to score and it really hurt the team in game 6. The goal he allowed to Sammy Blais a minute and a half into the game, right underneath his blocker and above the pad, was a deflating way to start the first period when their season was on the line and they were missing three of their best players. He broke his team’s back even more in the second when he failed to gobble up an Alex Petriengelo shot, and Brayden Schenn buried the puck into a wide-open net right after rookie Dylan Grambell scored his first career playoff goal in his second career playoff game to pull the Sharks within one. Jones played well in the third, but it was too little too late. Overall, he let up 4 goals on 22 shots for a save percentage of .778%. He allowed nine goals in the last two games of the Sharks season. His percentage over the series was .863 and his GAA was 3.66. These numbers aren’t terrible but when a teams’ entire season can come down to a goal or two like is the case in the Stanley Cup playoffs, those numbers are probably going to send a team home.

Photo Source: Jeff Roberson, Associated Press

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