Contrasting streaks will clash Monday night, and both could be extended, when the San Jose Sharks visit the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Sharks have dropped eight in a row (0-5-3) after a 5-3 road loss to the Ottawa Senators on Saturday.
The Maple Leafs stretched their winning streak to five games on Sunday by defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-5 in overtime to complete a four-game road trip.
In prolonging their losing streak, San Jose was outscored 4-1 in the third period at Ottawa.
As one might expect, the frustration is growing.
“It’s pretty tough,” Sharks defenseman Jake Walman said. “It eats you a little bit from the inside. You kind of come into buildings where teams — I mean, it’s the reality of it — where other teams feel that they can play confidently against us, and at some point we’ve got to strike that down and turn a page.”
The Sharks are 0-2-2 to open their seven-game trip. They dropped the first game of the trip 3-2 against the Calgary Flames and lost the next two in overtime against the Winnipeg Jets and Montreal Canadiens, respectively.
“We’re in games right now,” Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro said. “We’re right there. But that small margin for error, it’s this big, right? We’re not finding a way to stay disciplined enough to play a full 60 minutes, or whatever it is, to pull out those wins. I think that’s just a little bit of the immaturity in our game as a whole, as a team.”
Will Smith, Tyler Toffoli and former Maple Leaf Timothy Liljegren scored for San Jose.
“I just hope, a couple years from now, that these games are going to be meaningful,” Walman said. “Just don’t want to get stuck in this position for very long.”
The Maple Leafs will be home for just the contest against the Sharks before hitting the road for three games.
They have won eight of nine but they have done so while not necessarily playing as well as they can. The Maple Leafs were not pleased with their performance in a 3-2 win over the New York Rangers on Friday when they were outshot 35-16 and twice surrendered one-goal leads.
They led 2-0 before five minutes had been played on Sunday, but trailed 3-2 after the first period. They led 5-4 after two periods but lost the lead 10 seconds into the third period.
“It’s not how we wanted to draw it up,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “We made a couple of mistakes and put ourselves in a little bit of a hole. But guys stayed with it, climbed out of it, and found a way to get the win.”
William Nylander won it with a solo effort in the overtime, carrying the puck along the left wing from the Toronto end before cutting into the high slot and shooting.
“It’s good to win those games,” Nylander said. “It’s the positive thing that you can take away from it. Even though we’re not playing great, we’re still able to win the game.”
Captain Auston Matthews scored in the second period on Sunday, his 390th career goal to move past Darryl Sittler into second on the Maple Leafs’ all-time scoring list. Mats Sundin (420) is first.
“It’s nice to be in the same sentence as a guy like Darryl Sittler, obviously a great Leaf,” Matthews said.
Toronto defenseman Christopher Tanev (shoulder) was put on injured reserve.
–Field Level Media
