Forwards Nick Bonino, Tristen Robins, and Rudolfs Balcers all scored their first goals of the preseason as the Sharks lost 6-3 to the host Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on Sunday in the exhibition opener for both teams.
Bonino, signed in July by the Sharks to a two-year contract, scored a power-play goal at the 14:53 mark of the first period. Robins, a 2020 second-round draft pick, added an even-strength at the 10:24 mark of the second.
With the Sharks down 3-2, Balcers scored at the 6:35 mark of the third period on a nice individual effort to tie the game. The Ducks, though, got goals from Kodie Cur, 19, ran, Troy Terry, and Greg Pateryn to pull away.
“Overall, we saw a lot of things that we worked on all week and in practice,” said Sharks assistant coach John Madden, who ran the bench with John MacLean with Bob Boughner coaching the Sharks’ other game Sunday in Las Vegas. “We saw some bright spots from some of our young guys, so we’re pretty happy. I know we lost but at the same time, we saw a lot of good things,”
The Ducks also received goals from Hampus Lindholm, Alexander Volkov and Benoit-Olivier Groulx, with Groulx’s goal, after a Marc-Edouard Vlasic turnover, giving Anaheim a 3-2 lead with 4:24 to go in the second period.
Robins, 19, started Sunday’s game on a line with Merkley and Ozzy Wiesblatt, San Jose’s first-round pick in 2020. Robins, who played in two games for the Barracuda last season, is expected to return to Saskatoon of the WHL sometime during camp but impressed Madden with his heads-up play.
“I thought he did a lot of really good things. Take away the goal and I think he still played a great hockey game,” Madden said. “It’s his first little introduction to pro hockey. It started at the rookie camp, did some good things there and he’s learning our system. I thought he had a great game.”
Madden also liked what he saw from Wiesblatt and defenseman Ryan Merkley. Wiesblatt, he said, “had a great game as well, was real hungry for pucks and won a lot of his battles.”
On Merkley, Madden felt, “That’s the best I’ve seen him play. I thought he made some real good skill plays, real headsy plays. I thought he battled hard in his own zone. I know that he caught a couple of guys by surprise with some of the plays he made, and I thought he ran the power play excellent. So that was a real positive for him tonight.”
Dylan Gambrell is in a competition to be the Sharks’ fourth line center at the start of the season, and he impressed Madden on Sunday. Gambrell assisted on Robins’ goal and also won eight of 15 draws.
“I thought he had a great game,” Madden said of Gambrell. “I thought both on both sides of the ice, he showed up, Faceoffs, he was doing pretty good on those for most of the night.”
Sharks starting goalie Alexei Melnichuk played 29:49 and allowed two goals on 10 shots. He was relieved by Zach Sawchenko, who allowed the goal to Groulx and finished with 14 saves.
Both Melnichuk and Sawchenko are expected to be returned to the Barracuda at some point during training camp, although there had been speculation the NHL could implement a goalie taxi squad this season, allowing teams to keep a third goalie around in case of injury or illness to one of the top two netminders.
Madden thought the Sharks hung their goalies out to dry on a couple of Anaheim’s goals, but overall, felt they stopped the pucks they should have stopped.
The Sharks has five power-play opportunities in the game and had 10 shots with the man advantage.
There were two fights in the game. Sharks defenseman Jake Middleton fought Sam Carrick just 67 seconds into the first period, and Nicolas Meloche dropped the gloves with Curran 1:55 into the second. Meloche was apparently hurt in the scrap, as he left the game and did not return. Madden did not have an update on Meloche after the game.
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Author: Curtis Pashelka