Goalie Kaapo Kahkonen had his best game in a Sharks uniform but once again the skaters in front of him provided little or nothing in the way of offensive support.
Ryan Johansen scored from a sharp angle at the 3:18 mark of overtime as the Nashville Predators beat the Sharks, 1-0, at Bridgestone Arena.
Kahkonen had 26 saves through the first two periods and finished with 40, but the Sharks still fell to 0-5-2 since a March 26 win over the Anaheim Ducks.
On their season-long seven-game skid, the Sharks have scored just 13 goals.
In his first five games as a Shark since he was acquired from the Minnesota Wild on March 21, Kahkonen had an average of two goals of offensive support per 60 minutes played. Not surprisingly, as a result, Kahkonen had an 0-3-0 record to go with a .895 save percentage.
The Sharks (29-33-10) had just 16 shots on goal in the first two-and-a-half periods of Tuesday’s game and Predators goalie Juuse Saros finished with 25 saves as the Sharks were shut out for the eighth time this season.
Nashville thought it had a 1-0 lead in the second period as Filip Forsberg’s shot from the inside the blue line found its way past Kahkonen. But the Sharks and video coach Dan Darrow challenged the goal for offside and it was determined that Nashville’s Matt Duchene preceded the puck into the offensive zone and was in an offside position prior to the goal.
The Sharks’ fully expected Tuesday’s game to have a little extra emotion.
The Sharks lost 4-2 to the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday, a game punctuated by a heated conversation between captain Logan Couture and some of his teammates, including Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns and Timo Meier.
With just seconds left in the third period and the Sharks down 3-2, Couture dove to try and block a shot by J.T. Miller on San Jose’s empty net. The puck went off the post and Couture, on one knee, shot it behind the net and around the boards, expecting Karlsson or another Sharks player to be there.
But Karlsson had stayed at the Canucks’ blue line while the play went into the Sharks’ zone and was too late in coming back, allowing Luke Schenn to collect the puck and fire it into the empty net with 0.9 seconds left.
After the last faceoff, which sealed the Sharks’ sixth straight loss, Couture then stood up and voiced his displeasure about what happened.
“That happens, conversations and guys get frustrated during games, and that’s it,” Couture said Saturday. “I mean, we lost. No one’s going to be smiling and happy with each other. But the game ends, you flush it, go back, have dinner tonight and probably forget about it.”
Couture early in the first period leveled Nashville forward Eeli Tolvanen behind the Predators net and shortly afterward, Sharks winger Jeffrey Viel fought defenseman Mark Borowiecki.
Tomas Hertl went at Borowiecki at the 11:17 mark of the first period after the Predators’ defenseman tried to hit Noah Gregor at the Nashville blue line, and Meier picked up roughing and high-sticking minor penalties after he was bumped by Dante Fabbro after the whistle.
Nashville entered Tuesday in the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference with 87 points, one point ahead of the Dallas Stars, who held the second wild-card spot. The Vegas Golden Knights had 84 points before Tuesday’s games.
The Sharks lost 3-1 to the Predators in October and 8-0 at home to Nashville in early March.
Coach Bob Boughner said the Sharks had a meeting Monday, “not about that last game that we played, but where they’re at in the standings right now and what this game means for them, what kind of team they have, the identity that they’ve forged out, obviously a physical team, a team that has sort of a wolfpack mentality.”
