The San Jose Sharks won, but they didn\u2019t play winning hockey.<\/p>\n
They got away with it on Saturday, pulling out a 5-4 OT victory over the Los Angeles Kings. But head coach Ryan Warsofsky knows it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can put the puck in the net. But we\u2019re trying to win a lot of hockey games and go do something in the spring, and you have to play a certain way, or you won\u2019t,\u201d Warsofsky said. \u201cWe can\u2019t just rely on skill.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what the Sharks did, however, on Saturday. Halfway into the game, a Nolan Allan point shot somehow eluded Anton Forsberg, giving San Jose a 3-1 lead. Shots were even then, at 14 apiece.<\/p>\n
The Sharks then fell asleep at the wheel, ceding 12 of the next 13 shots, before Igor Chernyshov\u2019s breakaway, four minutes into the final frame, made it 4-2.<\/p>\n
That should\u2019ve calmed the waters for the San Jose Sharks, but it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe needed to simplify our game,\u201d Warsofsky said. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be nights where you don\u2019t really have your hands, maybe you don\u2019t have your legs, but you got to have your brain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two examples stood out, one the right way, one the wrong way to play for the Sharks.<\/p>\n
Cue the tape from 00:34 on\u2026<\/p>\n
In Chernyshov-Michael Misa-Tyler Toffoli\u2019s next shift after the Chernyshov breakaway strike, Misa (77) comes up with the puck after a big Tyler Toffoli (73) block.<\/p>\n
Misa\u2019s line is changing, so the center\u2019s job is clear, especially with a slim third period lead: Get it in deep, and either change or get in on the forecheck. The 19-year-old does neither, losing the puck to Drew Doughty (8) and Joel Edmundson (6).<\/p>\n
On watching the replay, it\u2019s hard to believe that Misa would choose to go 1-on-2 in the neutral zone in this situation, but regardless, he\u2019s got to execute the dump. He doesn\u2019t, and Los Angeles counterattacks, which they kept doing even after the 4-2 goal. They\u2019d tie the game after this, outshooting San Jose 10-5 to close regulation.<\/p>\n
Warsofsky defended his teenage center post-game, fair play in public, \u201cThere\u2019s always some puck decisions that we got to get cleaned up, but he was skating. I liked some of the things he does and did tonight, and we can get wrapped up in some of the neutral zone puck play and some of the turnovers that we need to obviously clean up. But I liked his legs.\u201d<\/p>\n
But fact of the matter, that\u2019s not winning hockey. The neutral zone matters so much. While the San Jose Sharks came away with back-to-back OT victories to start the season, no doubt, beating the Florida Panthers on Thursday felt more earned than this victory.<\/p>\n
Per Stathletes, the Sharks took the 5-on-5 neutral zone turnover battle against the Panthers, with 10 NZ Giveaways to Florida\u2019s 17. San Jose had 21 NZ Giveaways to Los Angeles\u2019s 13 on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Misa accounted for four of those giveaways, team-worst, against the Kings.<\/p>\n
For what it\u2019s worth, Warsofsky wasn\u2019t talking out of the side of his mouth, when praising Misa\u2019s skating. Misa led the Sharks with 16 5-on-5 Loose Puck Recoveries (non-shot), ahead of superstar Macklin Celebrini\u2019s 12. So no doubt, Misa, who\u2019s noticeably faster this season, was on his horse getting to the puck on Saturday.<\/p>\n
He also had the primary assist on Allan\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n
Misa just has to refine his decision-making, perfectly normal for a 19-year-old center.<\/p>\n
Warsofsky simply chose to emphasize the positive, which is, again, fair play in public, especially when handling a teenage athlete.<\/p>\n
But privately, I\u2019m sure that Warsofsky would\u2019ve rather had seen this type of puck play with a two-goal lead.<\/p>\n
Run the tape from 00:35\u2026<\/p>\n
Kiefer Sherwood (44) jumps on the loose puck after Yaroslav Askarov denies a Corey Perry (90) bid, getting it to Zack Ostapchuk (63) at center ice. The young centerman isn\u2019t making any moves here, he just gets it in deep and changes.<\/p>\n
Sherwood and Barclay Goodrow (23) get in on the forecheck. And while the duo doesn\u2019t create any offense, their 15 seconds of persistent forecheck pushes the Kings back, allowing the Sharks to change and set up their neutral zone defense. Mikey Anderson (44) tries to pump a pass up to Alex Laferriere (14), but Jacob Trouba (65) is on top of the winger, and this time, it\u2019s San Jose that\u2019s forced an NZ turnover.<\/p>\n
This is winning hockey, that the young Sharks didn\u2019t do enough of with the lead on Saturday. These points matter now, especially gifting a point to your close conference rival and competition for a playoff berth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be cleaned up. We understand,\u201d Warsofsky said. \u201cThere\u2019s certain situations, the game within the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Jose Sharks won, but they didn\u2019t play winning hockey. They got away with it on Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[102274,41681,1706,3259,24011,1036,88,90,89,98,189729,26194],"class_list":["post-485258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-2026-27","tag-kiefer-sherwood","tag-los-angeles-kings","tag-michael-misa","tag-neutral-zone","tag-ryan-warsofsky","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sharks-insight","tag-zack-ostapchuk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485258","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=485258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}