How do you lose seven straight games at this time of season with positioning on the line for the NHL playoffs?
Ask the San Jose Sharks, they accomplished that feat Thursday night in a 5-4 loss to the visiting Chicago Blackhawks.
“We’ve got to come back to work tomorrow and figure it out,” Sharks forward Logan 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 quickest and comes out of it the proper way, and that’s what we’re working to do.”
Alex DeBrincat struck for two goals and now has 40 on the season.
“It’s a cool accomplishment,” DeBrincat said. “It’s kind of what I’ve been working for and obviously I couldn’t do it without my linemates giving me the puck and finding me in open areas, and a lot of times I’m just there to bang it in, so a lot of credit to them.”
DeBrincat is the youngest Blackhawks player to reach 40 goals.
“We’ve had trouble scoring lately so to get those goals was probably a relief for everyone,” Blackhawks head coach Jeremy Colliton said. “We knew they were a desperate team also, they’ve been struggling, so you’re kind of worried going into a game like this when they’re at home and they’ve had a couple of games to sit on the results, so really good start for us.”
Connor Murphy, Jonathan Toews and Chris Kunitz added single markers for the Hawks.
“It’s a big win,” Toews said. “Every win’s big now. Obviously our last loss was tough, put us in a tough position, but we’re not accepting any fate any time soon so it’s a big win for us to stay alive and keep that morale up and keep heading towards the end of the season in the right direction regardless of what happens in the standings.”
Corey Crawford made 26 saves to get the win.
The Sharks are 06-1 in their last seven.
“This is the time of the year you want to play your best hockey,” Sharks forward Gustav Nyquist said. “And it starts with you just got to look at yourself in the mirror and see what you got to do better and work hard. That’s what it comes down to.”
Tomas Hertl, Lukas Radil, Timo Meier, and Nyquist scored for the Sharks.
[WATCH: All Blackhawks vs. Sharks highlights]
Martin Jones made 22 saves in the loss.
“Penalty trouble got us early, and again, same story. We’re chasing the game the rest of the night. I thought we did a good job battling back to 4-4 and then they get that fifth goal. Throw it at the net and find a way to get a stick on it. It’s one of those times now when everything that can go wrong is going wrong for us and we got to fight through it,” Sharks head coach Peter DeBoer said after the loss.
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