Sharks fall short of sweep against rival Canucks

The third time was the charm for Vancouver, at least for this week.

The San Jose Sharks fell short of sweeping a hat trick’s worth of matchups against the Canucks, falling to their Pacific Division rivals 4-2 to cap a three-game stretch since last Sunday.

Saturday night’s loss marked a rocky start to backup goalie James Reimer’s career in Teal, and allowed the streaking Ducks and newly-dethroned Kings to inch further into the conference horizon.

Patrick Marleau said:

“We want to keep pace with those guys (the Ducks and Kings) and take care of our games. Hopefully some other teams will end up taking some points from them.”

Journeyman Michael Haley opened the night’s scoring when he intercepted a sluggish pass in Canucks territory and punched in his own deflected shot for his first goal since 2011.

Later in the first period, it was Haley who trudged to the penalty box after a high-sticking foul,  allowing Linden Vey to even the game with their first of three Vancouver power play goals.

Haley said:

“It was nice to get the first one in San Jose, it’s a good feeling. Then I put us in a hole there. I didn’t see him, and I missed his stick and kinda clipped him.

The Canucks capitalized on a man advantage again in the second when Daniel Sedin planted himself in front of Reimer and redirected a Sven Baertschi slapshot between his legs and past the Shark’s newest addition.

Paul Martin said:

“He (Reimer) played great, he made the saves he needed to make. It was up to us to put up some of the goals to help him out and we didn’t. I thought he played well we just didn’t give him our best effort.”

Brent Burns looked to reignite the third-period surges of Thursday and Sunday when he snapped a  shot past Canucks goalie Jacob Markstrom to tie the contest at 2-2.

Vanouver’s response was more of the same: A flurry of five-on-four Canucks passing that crossed up Reimer and left Dan Hamhuis with an easy flip to put the Canucks back in the lead. Alexandre Burrows’ followed up with an empty-netter and cemented the final score at 4-2.

Head Coach Peter DeBoer said:

“We probably got what we deserved. Missed opportunity, but we’re not going to spend a lot of time on it. It was one of those games where we were short most of the night, and we didn’t get the job done.”

The Sharks will travel to Canada for games against Calgary on Monday and Edmonton on Tuesday before returning to San Jose.