The Sharks drop their home finale of the season to the Anaheim Ducks 5-2.
Team Teal crapped the bed in their latest game compared to their previous few. They fell behind early, mounted a comeback late in the second period, but the next goal to tie or possibly lead was out of reach for them unfortunately. The Ducks struck first early in the first period via Trevor Zegras on the power play; luckily he didn't pull off the lacrosse goal this time. Troy Terry nearly scored another one for Anaheim, but it was overturned after the replay review determined that there was a distinct kicking motion on that particular play.
The Ducks extended their lead to 3-0 early in the middle frame with goals from Max Comtois and Sonny Milano. The Sharks' comeback began late in the second period with a goal by Brent Burns on the man advantage followed by Scott Reedy's sixth goal of the season and at the NHL level. Logan COuture, Thomas Bordeleau, Jaycob Megna, and Sasha Chmelevski each picked up assists on the Sharks' only two goals of the game.
San Jose had opportunities to tie and go ahead early in the final frame but hit a few posts in the process. In addition, Jonah Gadjovich and Hunter Drew fought due to a hit laid on Noah Gregor by Drew. Later in the third, the Ducks capped this one off with a goal from Josh Mahura and an empty-netter from Zach Aston-Reese, taking the season series with the Sharks three games to one.
Kaapo Kahkonen didn't have his best performance last night, recording 26 saves and giving up four goals in the loss.
In other news, Rudolfs Balcers announced after the game that he will be competing for Team Latvia in the World Championships in Finland next month. Also, the Dallas Stars defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 in a shootout last night, putting the Knights on the brink of missing the playoffs once more. The great part now is that the only way the Golden Knights can make the playoffs this season is if they win out the rest of the season and the Stars lose the remainder of their regular season games. Considering this scenario and who each of these teams are facing in their last two regular season games, the odds of Vegas pushing through and extending their season are quite slim. The rest of the NHL and I are begging for this unlikely outcome to not occur, and I am very confident that things won't play out that way. Vegas missing the playoffs for the first time in their franchise history is necessary for the sanity of the NHL and to maintain parity throughout the league.
As for this game, it wasn't how we wanted the last home game of the season to end, but we shouldn't be all that shocked that it ended this way with how this season has gone as a whole. The Sharks' next-to-last game of the season is Thursday in Edmonton against the Oilers at 6 pm PT.
Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area/California, NHL App
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