Patrick Marleau moved one game closer to making NHL history but once again the San Jose Sharks remained completely stationary in the West Division standings.
The Sharks fell behind by two goals early in the second period and could not come up with enough of a response in a 3-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Friday to open a four-game road trip.
The Sharks’ Tomas Hertl scored at the 3:32 mark of the first period, beating Wild goalie Cam Talbot with a snap shot after a rush up the ice for his 13th goal of the season.
But Minnesota responded with three unanswered goals, including ones by Mats Zuccarello and Zach Parise at the 2:15 and 3:20 marks of the second period, respectively, to take a 3-1 lead.
“We gave ourselves a chance to win. Defensively, we were pretty good, we didn’t give up much but there wasn’t much out there offensively,” Sharks captain Logan Couture said. “But we’ve got to find a way to do more.”
Evander Kane scored a shorthanded goal with 6:17 to go in the third period, but the Sharks (18-21-4) have now lost four straight games and five of their last six after they completed a 1-4-0 homestand earlier this week.
San Jose was swept in a two-game series by the Anaheim Ducks earlier this week, outscored 8-1 along the way. Friday marked a better overall effort for the Sharks but the same dreary end result.
“We were looking for that kind of game, a response game, after our last couple of games and we got it,” Boughner said. “We played hard. We did a lot of great things out there.”
Boughner lamented two missed his sticking calls, one on forward Marcus Sorensen and the other on defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic.
The Sharks were 0-for-1 with the man advantage Friday and are now 2-for-21 on the power play over their last six games.
“I wish we’d been on the power play a little more, and I think there was a few high stakes missed,” Boughner said. “I think that was the difference in the game. We only give up (13) shots on 5-on-5, so tough to break down that game and say that we didn’t come out, we didn’t respond and we didn’t play well. I thought all those things happened.”
Kane’s goal snapped a personal five-game drought, and Hertl’s goal was his second in seven games. Overall, though, the Sharks have now scored just 11 goals in their last six games.
“We’ve only scored three goals over the last three games, so, we need to find some more offense,” Couture said.
Couture remains as frustrated as anyone on the roster, as he’s now gone without a goal in 13 games, matching the longest drought of his NHL career. He also went 13 games without a goal from Oct. 8 to Nov. 5 last season.
Couture is presumably one of a handful of Sharks players who are less than 100 percent right now. He had one shot on goal Friday.
San Jose remained four points back of the idle St. Louis Blues for the fourth and final playoff spot in the division and now has 13 games left.
“Got to find a way to do more and create more offensively,” Couture said. “I thought as a line we had a few good shifts, but not enough. We’re counted on to score, myself, obviously, so not good enough right now.”
The game was the 1,766th of Marleau’s NHL career, as he moved to within one game of tying Gordie Howe for first place on the league’s all-time games played list.
Marleau is set to tie Howe’s mark of 1,767 games Saturday night vs. the Wild, and will own the record by himself Monday when the Sharks play the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena.
