Sharks sloppy in loss to Tampa Bay

After two days off, the Sharks continued their 6 game road trip in Tampa Bay to face the Lightning. The game got off to a bad start for the Sharks with Tampa scoring just 30 seconds in the game. It was rookie Jamie Wright's first career goal. (How many times have Sharks fans heard that one? Too many.)

From there, the Lightning played their game, and the Sharks seemed to be unable to really find their game the whole night. Before the first period was up, Tampa scored again to take a 2-0 lead into the intermission.

This was my first look at second overall draft pick Victor Hedman. He was paired with veteran Mattias Ohlund, also from Sweden signed as a free agent this past summer to mentor the 18 year old. Hedman looked good out there. One time he escaped from Joe Thornton's forechecking pressure to start the play up ice. He then followed the rush and was able to jump out into the offensive zone to corral the puck before making a backhand feed into the slot. Keep an eye on this kid as he may turn out to be something special, like his high draft status would imply.

The Sharks were able to cut the lead to 2-1 on Ryan Vesce's third goal, giving him a three game goal scoring streak. Vesce put in the rebound of Kent Huskins' shot from the point. Also assisting on the play was rookie defenseman Jason Demers, his eighth of the season. That ties Demers with Philadelphia's Matt Carle (former Shark) for the league lead for defenseman assists. (Not rookie d-men, but all d-men.) Tampa Bay answered when former first overall pick Steven Stamkos picked up a turnover from Evgeni Nabokov, skated around, whiffed on his shot, then got it away on the second attempt. Demers was unable to get away from Ryan Malone near the net to cover Stamkos and fell on the play.

Tampa was able to extend their lead to 4-1 on a shot from the blue line from Andrej Meszaros. Unfortunately for the Sharks, this was tipped by Marc-Edouard Vlasic, making it harder for Nabokov to stop. Still, a shot from that distance, I'm sure Nabby would like to have that one back.

The Sharks were able to make it interesting by scoring on the power play with 6:19 to go. This came from Dan Boyle after he moved well laterally to make a shooting lane. Not getting on the scoresheet on the play but still having a big impact was Devin Setoguchi. He screened Tampa's netminder Mike Smith, keeping him from seeing the shot. (I'm not sure, but Smith might still have not seen it.)

After pulling Nabokov for the extra attacker, the Sharks were unable to score. They had a great goal mouth scramble, including the referee in the zone jumping on top of the net to be in the right place to make a call. The pucked stayed alive, wasn't ever frozen, so play continued. Stick tap to the referee there for being there and getting it right. He could have easily stayed a little away and blown the play dead, but he got right up there, into a good vantage point and made the right call - no call.

Tampa was able to put the game away with an empty net goal from Stamkos, his second of the night. Alex Tanguay made a nice play here to head man the puck to Stamkos when he could have shot it at the empty net. Stamkos was in better position to skate clearly to the empty net and rag more time. Even though Tanguay is still looking for his first goal of the season, he made the unselfish play.

Tampa was able to play their game, putting pressure on the Sharks, winning more face offs than the Sharks, while the Sharks just seemed to be off a little the whole night. They weren't able to get much of anything going even though they shuffled around the lines. We'll see if they can regroup in time for Saturday's game in Atlanta. Also, now that we're 10 games in to the season and Thomas Greiss's only game action has been in relief, we're wondering if Greiss will get the nod for either the Atlanta game, or the Philly game the following day.