Team Teal didn’t have much of a chance against the Colorado Avalanche tonight, losing 6-2 to close out their brief two-game road trip.
This game got underway by Jacob MacDonald receiving a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct for boarding Sam Melinski, in which Melinski was in an awkward position, drew blood, and was slow to get up, ending MacDonald’s night. This ensuing five-minute power play for the Avalanche set up Val Nichushkin to score the first goal of the game for Colorado. The Avs added two more goals later in the first period via Mikko Rantanen on their second power play opportunity and Miles Wood to go up by three through one period of play.
The Avalanche continued scoring early in the second period, extending their lead to four by none other than Nathan MacKinnon. The Sharks got on the board soon after on their power play, as Tomas Hertl deflected a shot from Mikael Granlund to cut Team Teal’s deficit to three. Alexander Barabanov collected the secondary assist on this goal. On the other hand, Calen Addison exited the game after the end of the second period due to a lower-body injury.
Things picked back up in the third period, as Ryan Johansson scored on an unlucky bounce to make it 5-1 Avs, while Tomas Hertl responded with his second goal of the night and team-leading 11th goal of the season to get the Sharks back in it, with William Eklund and Mikael Granlund recording the assists on Hertl’s second goal of the game. Later in the third period, Nathan MacKinnon put this one away for good with an empty-netter for his second goal and fourth point of the night.
Mackenzie Blackwood was back in net for the Sharks tonight, recording 23 saves on 28 shots against. In addition, Anthony Duclair was a healthy scratch ahead of this game, primarily because Head Coach David Quinn didn’t like some aspects of his performance in the Sharks’ shutout loss to the Coyotes in Arizona on Friday, and Jack Studnicka made his Sharks debut against the Avs tonight after being acquired from the Canucks in a trade on Friday.
It’s possible that the Sharks’ magic from their recent stretch of games may have ran out for the time being. It was going to be tough for the Sharks to pull off any sort of win against a great Avalanche team in Denver. Next up, the Sharks return home for their next two games, starting on Tuesday against the Los Angeles Kings at 7:30 pm PT, which can be streamed exclusively on ESPN+.
Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area/California, NHL App, San Jose Mercury News
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