Sharks Playoff Hopes Take Hit in Shootout Loss to Last-Place Canucks

SAN JOSE — The SAP Center was buzzing with playoff urgency Saturday night. The San Jose Sharks needed wins, and they needed help. The help did not come. Then, compounding the damage, the Sharks went out and dropped a game they had no business losing.

Vancouver, sitting last in the Pacific Division, walked into San Jose and handed the Sharks a 4-3 shootout defeat. The loss, combined with an Edmonton victory over Los Angeles earlier in the evening, may have administratively sealed the Sharks' fate for the season.

It was not as if San Jose did not show up. Igor Chernyshov, the 19-year-old rookie who has been one of the few genuine bright spots in this rebuilding season, scored twice. Tyler Toffoli added another. The Sharks carried play through large stretches of the first period, generating the better chances against a Vancouver team that arrived having lost seven of its previous nine. SAP Center's crowd sensed a get-right game unfolding.

Then the shootout arrived, and the game devolved into something far less reassuring.

Goaltender Yaroslav Askarov, acquired in the Jakob Markstrom deal and brought in as a pillar of the Sharks' future between the pipes, had a night to forget. A misjudged dump-in led to a soft goal. An oddly timed net-dislodgement — the goal came off its moorings after Askarov himself nudged it — handed an opponent a gaping cage and an easy finish. Whether Askarov was trying to reset, having fun, or channeling his inner Marc-Andre Fleury, the timing could not have been worse.

The defensive structure that has held reasonably well during five-on-five play dissolved at critical moments. The penalty kill, which has been a persistent liability over the past month, surrendered another goal. The Sharks have now allowed 11 goals in their last 17 short-handed situations. It is the kind of special teams collapse that sinks teams in April.

For all the promise of the season — the emergence of Celebrini as a Calder Trophy contender, the steady progression of young forwards like Chernyshov and Eklund — this stretch has been a reminder of how far San Jose remains from true contention. They are skilled. They are loose with the puck. They are prone to lapses that playoff teams simply do not commit.

The shootout itself offered little in the way of redemption. Askarov's attempts to read Vancouver's shooters were, charitably, optimistic. The Sharks managed to push the format to a third round, but by then the damage was done.

Head coach Ryan Warsofsky will have a quiet flight home, if there is a road trip remaining. The sting of this loss, on the heels of two straight defeats, will linger into the offseason. This Sharks team has made genuine progress. Saturday night was a step backward.