SAN JOSE \u2013 After dismal performances in their previous two outings, the San Jose Sharks needed a response Saturday night in their game against the Pittsburgh Penguins.<\/p>\n
They got it, but their first win of the season remains elusive.<\/p>\n
Goalie Alex Nedeljkovic made 24 saves, including 18 in the first period, but Sidney Crosby\u2019s second-period goal proved to be the winner as the Penguins handed the Sharks a 3-0 loss at SAP Center.<\/p>\n
Penguins forward Anthony Mantha added an insurance goal at the 7:02 mark of the third period, and Evgeni Malkin scored an empty-netter with 21 seconds to go, as the Sharks (0-3-2) remained the NHL\u2019s last winless team.<\/p>\n
The Sharks open a four-game road trip on Tuesday against the New York Islanders.<\/p>\n
Ugly starts are nothing new for San Jose as the team started 0-5-0 in 2022, 0-10-1 in 2023, and 0-7-2 last season. They finished with the NHL\u2019s fourth-worst record in 2022-23 and have ended the previous two years at the bottom of the league standings.<\/p>\n
The Sharks began this season with overtime losses to both the Vegas Golden Knights and Anaheim Ducks, but were completely outclassed in their last two games before Saturday. The Sharks lost 5-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday, in which they didn\u2019t manage a shot on net in the third period, and 6-3 to the Utah Mammoth on Friday, in which they were badly outchanced in the first period.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe victory will come with the way we work and the way we compete,\u201d Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said before Saturday\u2019s game. \u201cThe game is a humbling game. We can\u2019t beat ourselves. We have to be disciplined in certain situations.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, we just want to win the game. You\u2019ve got to put the work in to the get the result. So we\u2019ve got to worry about the process and the way we have to work and the way we have to play, and the victory will come with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sharks created a handful of scoring chances in an up-tempo first two periods but were unable to beat Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry, who finished with 30 saves.<\/p>\n
On the Penguins\u2019 goal, Rickard Rakell took the puck around the Sharks\u2019 net and found defenseman Kris Letang at the blue line. His shot toward the net was then redirected past Nedeljkovic for his third goal of the season.<\/p>\n
The Penguins later took a 2-0 lead as Justin Brazeau danced around Macklin Celebrini and fed Mantha for his second goal this season.<\/p>\n
Celebrini scored his first goal of the season on Friday, and stil leads the Sharks with five points in five games. His childhood idol, Crosby, has seven points in six games.<\/p>\n
In his first career game against the Penguins last season, Celebrini had the game-winning goal at the 3:41 mark of the third period as the Sharks earned a 2-1 win in San Jose. Celebrini\u2019s goal came 3:17 after Crosby tied the game 1-1.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: October 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2013 After dismal performances in their previous two outings, the San Jose Sharks needed a response…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[7,404,88,90,89,98,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-12311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-san-jose","11":"tag-san-jose-headlines","12":"tag-san-jose-news","13":"tag-san-jose-sharks","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}