San Jose Sharks in Connor Bedard sweepstakes as losses pile up

San Jose Sharks coach David Quinn made a declaration after seeing his team lose its eighth straight game.

“It’s going to stop, I’ll tell you that right now,” Quinn said after the Sharks were smoked 7-2 by the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday. “It may not stop this year, but it will stop soon.”

No one’s kidding themselves within the Sharks organization. The Sharks have 10 games left this season and will be an underdog in every one of them, starting with Saturday’s game in Calgary against the desperate Flames.

They’re squarely in the mix to win the NHL Draft Lottery and earn the right to draft Connor Bedard.

But Quinn and the players still want to at least give themselves a chance at success, something that’s been happening with increasingly less frequency over the last five-plus weeks.

Thursday in Vancouver, through a combination of turnovers, some lackluster defense, and questionable goaltending, the Sharks fell again and are now 2-12-4 since a 4-1 win over the Washington Capitals on Super Bowl Sunday.

Turnovers by Sharks center Tomas Hertl led to the Canucks’ first and fourth goals. Some poor checking played a role in the Canucks’ second and third goals and, who knows, maybe a bit of indifference at this stage led to one or two of the others.

Dakota Joshua’s goal with less than a second remaining in the first period gave Vancouver a 3-1 lead and proved to be the back-breaker. The Sharks (19-38-15) had started to find a rhythm in the final few minutes of the period following Hertl’s goal at the 9:34 mark that cut the deficit to one but couldn’t overcome another breakdown when Joshua got behind the Sharks’ defense and stickhandled around Reimer.

“We got one back, but we just killed ourselves in the first because the three goals, we just give it to them,” Hertl said. “It wasn’t like they have to do anything special. It was just three free goals, and after it was too many penalties, and that’s how it’s going for us lately.

“We just give them the goals by our mistakes, and I just can’t start it. I am one of the guys here and (it) just can’t happen like that.”

“He’s trying to make plays and he puts an awful lot of responsibility on himself,” Quinn said of Hertl. “It’s been a hard season for all of us. He wears it on his sleeve and like he bounced back and got it back.”

Goaltending, offense, defense, special teams, team speed, and a lack of grit have all been problematic at some point in recent weeks. General manager Mike Grier, watching from a Rogers Arena skybox Thursday, has seen it first-hand, and no doubt knows that several issues will need addressing this offseason.

Since their win over the Washington Capitals on Feb. 12, the Sharks are:

• Last in the NHL in wins (two) and points (eight)
• Last in goals per game (2.22)
• Second-to-last in goals allowed per game (4.22)
• Last in power play percentage (9.1)
• Third-to-last in penalties taken per 60 minutes (4.21).

Of course, as the Sharks’ losses have mounted, their odds of winning the NHL Draft Lottery have increased.

The Sharks had the fifth worst record in the NHL on Feb. 12 at 17-26-11 and an 8.5 percent chance of winning the lottery. Now with the second-worst record in the NHL, the Sharks’ chances stand at 13.5 percent, as they remain two points ahead of last-place Columbus, which has two games in hand.

So Quinn might be right in his proclamation. With the help of a couple of first-round draft picks this year, including, potentially, the No. 1 overall draft pick, maybe a turnaround is in the offing. The Sharks’ confidence as a group can’t get much lower.?

In the meantime, the Sharks would like to be able to give themselves a little better chance at success than they did Thursday.

After Saturday, seven of the Sharks’ last nine games will come against teams that are in playoff contention.

“When you make so many changes, some of the things that are happening out there are not really the fault of the new players,” Quinn said. “They just haven’t been accustomed to playing the way you want to play, but the guys that have been here have to keep this thing together and understand we’ve got a season to finish, and we’ve got to do a better job finishing on a strong note.”