Last Minute News, Rumors, Reports Ahead of Sharks vs Islanders

Saturday night in Dallas, the San Jose Sharks were winning 1-0 in the first period. The Dallas Stars then scored 3 goals in 7 minutes and 35 seconds, and the Sharks never led again. They lost 4-3, and that was their 5th loss in a row, all of them in regulation, with 8 goals scored and 22 allowed. Tonight, the New York Islanders show up in San Jose, and they have lost 3 in a row of their own. Saturday they led New Jersey 4-2 and still lost in overtime. So one of these losing skids ends tonight, and I think the reason is something a lot of people aren't looking at. Dallas is the one to start with because the lead was gone before the first period ended. Mesa scored at 7-22 of the first, hence tied it on the power play at 9-16, and Ben and Robertson scored before the period was over. The Sharks fought back to a 4-3 on Will Smith's power play goal in the second, but nobody scored in the third, and Dallas had a 31-23 edge in shots on goal. At Minnesota the night before, Celebrini tied it 1-1 in the second period, and two minutes and four seconds later, Shabbir put the Wild back in front on the power play. Askarov stopped 24 of 28 shots in that one, and the Sharks had 24 shots of their own. But Wallin stopped 23 of 24 for the Wild. At Los Angeles on Wednesday, the Kings were up 3-0 after the first, and Adrian Kempe finished with a hat trick. Sherwood said it plainly after that game, the coaches are not the issue right now, the Sharks are not winning the battles. Celebrini added that to a man, they need to be better. Look at those three games and when the Sharks either took the lead or tied it in two of them, they gave that goal almost right back. Shots tell the same story because they had 32 at Los Angeles and 23 at Dallas and they still lost both. So the Sharks aren't being buried. They are losing games within short windows of a few minutes and the Islanders know a lot about that as well. The Islanders are 7-6-3 with 17 points and the Sharks are 7-11-1 with 15. New York has scored 47 goals and allowed 49, while San Jose has scored 48 and allowed 69. Saturday was the game that hurt, so let's walk through it. The Islanders led the Devils 4-2 in the second period, and then New Jersey scored on a power play at 13-42 in the third to tie it. Jack Hughes won it with 1 minute and 18 seconds into overtime, and the Devils had 50 shots on goal against the Islanders 23. Two days before that, Carolina scored the go-ahead goal at 14-52 of the third and added an empty Netter to win 5-3. Those are two losses that look exactly like what has happened to the Sharks over the past two games as well, so this is a team that gives up the lead late like the Sharks. The Islanders are also short on talent because Matt Barzell is on injury reserve with a knee injury, Matthias Micael is out, and Ryan Pulock is out with an upper body injury. Pete DeBoer said Barzell and Micheli would not play Saturday, and nobody has said they are back for tonight. On the Sharks' side, Wemberg is on injury reserve, along with Chernyshov, Musty, and Kieser. Even so, I would not call this a free night for San Jose, because Newsday counts five straight Islanders wins over the Sharks. Both games last season were 4-3 in October and 2-1 in overtime in March, so the Sharks have been close in these games, they just can't win them. And the biggest reason New York keeps winning these games is in the crease. Ilya Sorokin has a 9-10 save percentage in 11 games this season, and the league average is 890. Yaroslav Askarov is at an 8-8-5 in 12 games with 40 goals allowed. Dougie Hamilton, who scored for the Devils Saturday, said Sorokin has been unbelievable against them for a while. On paper, that is a clear edge for the Islanders, but the numbers say Askarov is not the main problem. The Sharks allow 8.8 high-danger shots a game, and that is the second most in the NHL. When Askarov faces those shots, he saves 8.43 of them, which is better than Sorokin's 8.19 and a league average of 7.97. The Islanders give up 7.8 of those chances a game, so they are not much better in front of their goaltender. So the goalie isn't what's sinking this team, it is the number of quality chances that's been given up in front of him. Nobody has confirmed the starters, but Askarov went on November 4th and November 6th, and Nadelkovic went on November 7th. On the Islanders' side, Sorokin went on Saturday, and Varlamov went on November 5th, so I guess they would split the games again this week. Whoever it is, we need to look at something early, and that's us giving an early goal, because when we do that, we can hardly come back in-game, so getting the first goal is crucial tonight. And if you want more breakdowns like this, go down below, hit that subscribe button, it's completely free to do so, and tonight we will be live for a watch-along for this game, so hit that subscribe button, put the notifications on so you know when we go live for that. The Sharks gave up eight power plays in their last three games, three at Dallas, two at Minnesota, and three at Los Angeles. For this season, their penalty kill is 76.5%, and the Islanders' power play is 14.6%. Something has to give in that matchup, and the Islanders' power play could gain some confidence against the Sharks' penalty kill tonight. The other side looks different because the Sharks' power play is at 21.4%, and the Islanders' kill is at 85.7% of their penalties. Will Smith scored on the power play Saturday, and Celebrini and Stenberg both scored with the man advantage at Los Angeles. That is three power play goals in two games, but the penalty kill gave them all back. Take the Devils game as the model for New York, because Hamilton's power play goal tied it Saturday, and the Islanders have not been able to put games away. Horvat was asked about the Devils power plays after that game, and he said he highly doubts they played a perfect game. Neither team controls shots either, because the Sharks take 27 shots a game and allow 30.1, and the Islanders take 25.4 and allow 28.5, so special teams and the goalies carry more weight than usual. So the penalties matter tonight, so whoever stays out of the box more will probably win this game, and the Sharks really need to be disciplined going into tonight's game. We've been talking about it so much, so hopefully they can smarten up tonight. Macklin Celebrini has 21 points, and Will Smith is next to him on the Sharks with 13. He is at 1.24 points a game, which is in the 97th percentile, and he takes 4.2 shots on goal a game, which is in the 100th percentile. Against the Islanders, he has 5.8 shots on goal a game over four meetings, which is well above his season rate. He also gives the puck away 1.88 times a game, which is the worst number in the league. But he also takes it away .77 times a game, which is in the 99th percentile, so he has the puck on his stick on every shift. He had three assists Saturday at Dallas, and he scored the tying goal at Minnesota Friday. He is also one goal from passing Scott Thornton for 20th in Sharks history, which could happen in about three games. Behind him, Ivar Stenberg and Michael Misa have 11 points each, Trouba has 10, and Orlov has 9. Braden Shen has 12 points for the Islanders, and Simon Holmstrom has 9, and that is where the Islanders are deeper right now. Horvat and Matthew Schaefer lead New York with 16 points each, and Schaefer has 3 goals and 3 assists in his last 5 games. On October 29th at Minnesota, Schaefer skated the first full 5-minute overtime shift since the NHL started tracking shifts. Victor Eklund also scored on November 5th and November 7th, and the supporting cast has scored too for New York, and good fact here, Victor Eklund is the brother of former Shark, William Eklund. So Celebrini has to carry a team that scored 8 goals in 5 games, and he can't do it alone. The Sharks are six points behind third place in the Pacific and Anaheim has 21 points that hold that spot. The Sharks have played 19 games while Anaheim has played 18 and Seattle has played 16 so they cannot count down games in hand to make up that gap. In their last 10 games they are 3-7-0. The Islanders are 4-3-3 over that same stretch. After tonight's game the Sharks get Pittsburgh at home on Wednesday and the Penguins are 6-10-2 with 14 points. Then they go to Utah on Saturday, host Nashville on Sunday, and host Calgary on Tuesday, and Calgary sits right above them with 17 points. Those are four games in seven days after tonight against teams on 14 and 17 points, so a win tonight could start a real climb up the leaderboard. A loss tonight would be devastating, and everything around this organization, including the coaching staff, the GM, would start to get louder. For New York, this is the start of a three-game California trip with Los Angeles on Thursday and Anaheim on Saturday. The Kings have 12 points and the Ducks have 21, so the Islanders get a mix of games they should win and one they might not. If the Islanders lose tonight, they would be on a four-game winning streak, and that would turn a bad week into a bad month. So the same thing is on the line for both teams tonight, a reason to stop talking about a streak. Tonight, I got the San Jose Sharks ending their skid tonight. I really think this is the night we go out. We get a win on home ice. Give the home fans finally something to cheer about. The shots are going to be even tonight. Maybe the Sharks could out-shoot them tonight by a lot, which would be awesome. And obviously, the first goal really matters. If the Sharks score the first one tonight, I got a lot of faith in us winning. Obviously, one thing that's working against us is allowing eight power play goals in the last three games. So, hopefully, we can shut that down tonight and be able to go out there and kill penalties, not take as many, have our veterans kind of smarten up a little bit and be more disciplined. And obviously, we're not sure of the status on Barzal or Mielke yet, so if they get back into the lineup for the Islanders tonight, that's another thing to add to this game that could push the Islanders over the edge. So one thing to watch going into this game, after we score, don't let this team be able to score one right back and get that goal back. Be able to hold the lead and play a full 60 minutes. That's what I want to see tonight.