The Sharks had a great second period but coughed up another third-period lead as they lose 4-2 to the Colorado Avalanche for their third consecutive defeat.
The Avs get on the board early in the first period on a power play goal from Valeri Nichushkin. The Sharks responded in the second period, starting with Carl Grundstrom’s first goal of the year and in teal, with assists from Jan Rutta and Luke Kunin, followed by William Eklund’s sixth goal of the season, assisted by Cody Ceci and Luke Kunin, to take the lead 2-1. The go-ahead goal by Eklund was challenged by the Avalanche for a possible missed stoppage or high touch, but luckily there wasn’t enough evidence to overturn it, resulting in a Sharks power play for delay of game.
It was all Avalanche in the third period, starting with a questionable holding call on Barclay Goodrow that put the Avs on a power play that set up Mikko Rantanen to score to tie the game at two. Later in the third period, Colorado finished this one off with two goals from Joel Kiviranta to win 4-2 in San Jose.
Both starting goalies in this game faced their former teams tonight: Alexandar Georgiev for the Sharks against the Avalanche, and vice versa for Mackenzie Blackwood. Blackwood came out on top of this one, recording 32 saves on 34 shots in his return to San Jose as a member of the Avs. On the other hand, Alex Georgiev recorded 27 saves on 31 shots against in his first game against his former Avs as a member of the Sharks. On a side note, Vitek Vanecek is week-to-week with an upper-body injury after he was hit by a flying puck while sitting on the bench in Tuesday’s 4-3 loss to the Winnipeg Jets. As a result, Yaroslav Askarov was recalled from the Barracuda yesterday.
Not only was this their third straight loss, the Sharks had coughed up a third-period lead in all three of their most recent losses, all of which were at home, becoming the first team in NHL history to accomplish this infamous feat. Besides that, this was a rather entertaining game between the Sharks and Avalanche. Hopefully the Sharks can find ways to hold leads in the third period better than they have been lately, since this is an essential component of winning games, and this issue plaguing the Sharks can be resolved sooner than later. Next up, the Sharks hit the road to Western Canada for their last two games before the Christmas break, starting in Edmonton against the Oilers on Saturday at 1 pm PT.
Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area/California, NHL App, Curtis Pashelka via X
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