Will the real San Jose Sharks stand up before it’s too late?

After a long season of hard-fought games, the San Jose Sharks will need to dig deep to come back in this series against the Vegas Golden Knights. The way they have played in Game 2 and 3 is not going to cut it.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are a long and hard two months of hockey. They are filled with highs and lows. If you are going to hoist the Stanley Cup at the end of those long two months, you obviously have to have more highs than lows. The San Jose Sharks are in the middle of a low that will need to end soon if they will want to continue on their road to their first Stanley Cup championship.

In their first-round matchup against the Vegas Golden Knights, the Sharks have dropped two in a row and now face a 2-1 deficit in the series. They still have one more game left in Vegas before coming home for a Game 5. There are a lot of reasons why the Sharks are now in this hole.

We have seen these problems before in the few losing streaks that the Sharks had during the regular season. A few of these problems include goaltending, team defense, and lack of concentration during the opening minutes of periods.

For the Vegas Golden Knights, it has been just the opposite since Game 1 ended.

They have been firing on all cylinders and there seems to be no stopping them. The Sharks looked so good in Game 1 when they absolutely dominated the Knights by a score of 5-2. They looked like a completely different team when the puck dropped for Game 2 and Game 3.

The Sharks showed some moments where they looked like the team that beat them 5-2. Unfortunately, for the Sharks, they had played so poorly at the beginning of periods that no matter what they did in the later times, it would be too late to make the comeback. For a team that has looked like they could be the best in the west, it now looks like it could be a quick exit from the playoffs if they do not fix these problems.

One of the many issues the Sharks have had this season has been letting up goals early in the periods. More specifically in the first five minutes of the periods. Sunday night, in Game 3, it was no different as Mark Stone scored just 16 seconds into the first period. For the Sharks, it was not the start they were looking for as in Game 2, the Knights took a quick 3-0 lead in that game.

In the second period of Sunday night’s game, Paul Stastny scored just 21 seconds into the period. In the final period, Mark Stone scored only 36 seconds into the period. All goals came less than 40 seconds into the period. This shows that the Sharks have lacked that focus and intensity to not only start the game but also the periods.

If you want to compete in games, you have to play the full 60 minutes. In these past two games, the Sharks have not been playing those full 60 minutes.

While the Sharks have not played great these past two games, they have shown glimpses of being able to compete with this Vegas team. In Game 2, they were able to come back from a 3-0 deficit and tie the game in the first period by scoring three unanswered goals. Of course going back to not playing the full 60, the Sharks would let the Knights score two more goals and drop that game 5-3.

In this past game, they let up those three early goals at the start of each period. If you were watching the game or have seen the replays of the games, you can see that the communication between the Sharks players on the ice, has been pitiful as the Golden Knights players have been able to set up and get past the Sharks’ defenders with ease.

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This time of year, the key moments in games are the small plays that need to be made. You can not overthink plays and you most definitely need to communicate with the players around you.

The Sharks have been doing just the opposite and are now facing a 2-1 series deficit. Head coach Pete DeBoer put it nice and simple when he said, “We didn’t do enough to win tonight” when talking about the Game 3 loss.

At the end of the day, you need to be able to say you went out onto the ice and gave it everything you have, and the Sharks have not been able to say that since Game 1. You can not win a game in the first period but you sure can lose it.

For the Sharks, they actually lost it in the first 16 seconds.

Every time the Sharks seemed to be getting back on a roll gaining the momentum back on their side, the Knights were able to snatch right back up and bury another one past the team’s goaltenders. As much as I would like to pick out players and say what they are doing wrong, you need to have success as a team and you also have to be able to take a loss as a team.

While Martin Jones has been absolutely horrible these past two games, it has to start up front. You can not expect your goaltender to stop every single puck every single night. Your defenders have to be able to tie people up in front of the net so the goalie can track the puck and you have to know that the forwards are going to stop pucks when they can.

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For this Sharks team to come back and not only tie but win this series, they are going to have to make some changes not only in the game plan but within themselves to come back in Games 4 and 5 to put everything they have out there on the ice and be able to play as they did in Game 1. If they don’t do that and come out and play as they have in these past two games, it hurts me to say that the Knights will eliminate the Sharks for the second straight year.

I am not saying that the Sharks are completely done, because they are not. They absolutely have the talent to be able to come back and dominate this team. When they are playing together and clicking, they are by far the better team, and we saw that in Game 1. But we have also seen the other side, that when they are not doing that, they have many weaknesses and are able to be beaten fairly easily.

Tuesday’s game will be a must win for the Sharks are will have to be their best game yet. As a Sharks fan myself, I have hope in this team and I know 100% that they can turn it around and tie this series up. I am interested in a few things for that game as I expect a few changes to be made.

One of them, in my opinion, is the goaltending situation as I hope Aaron Dell gets a look at some minutes in that game and maybe even earns the start. Another is the lines that may be shuffled around. One change that I will not be surprised to see would be Joonas Donskoi being inserted back into the lineup. Of course, hopefully, they will get Marc Edouard Vlasic back from injury and would take the place of either Joakim Ryan or Tim Heed.