All the Sharks needed was a win. Just one win on Friday evening against the Ducks. Two points to salvage the road trip, stop the losing streak, and get back to hunting for first place in the division.
Not surprisingly, Team Teal made things interesting with a game that stayed tied up heading down the stretch. Unfortunately for San Jose, the Ducks were the victors in overtime 4-3.
Here are three takeaways from Friday's game:
How did the power play look?
In a few words: nonexistent until the third. San Jose had three opportunities on the man advantage through the first 40 minutes of play and couldn't make anything happen. They even gave up a couple breaks the other way that Dell had to stop. Had the power play converted, the Sharks might've been up by two or three goals after two period of play.
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Timo Meier came up big with the power-play goal in the third period to tie the score up 2-2. While they couldn't capitalize on the power-play opportunity immediately followed, Meier's marker will hopefully open up the flood gates for the power play.
Who else stepped up?
Sharks' bench boss Peter DeBoer didn't mince words after Thursday's loss to the Kings, saying that the team needed someone to step up during this stretch with injured superstars and be a hero.
"You've got to get a great performance from somebody in a game like this and I don't think we got that," DeBoer said on Thursday.
In all honesty, the whole team looked better even with the loss. The fourth line had a couple very memorable shifts, cycling low and establishing pressure. Joe Thornton's line was clicking, which was clear from Kevin Labanc's goal.
Gustav Nyquist was a solo standout – despite not finding the back of the net, he played a heck of a game and had some incredible looks. Of course, you can't talk about this game without talking about Justin Braun scoring the big game-tying goal in the third frame, which was his first marker since December 2.
How did Aaron Dell do?
In all fairness, Dell gave the Sharks a chance to win for the majority of the game. No. 30 has looked good in his last couple of outings – save his relief effort against the Golden Knights earlier in the week when he had little defense to help him out – and he made a couple great saves in Anaheim as well, especially when the Ducks had a couple short-handed breakaways.
Unfortunately for Dell, he gave up the two power-play goals in the third frame. While Braun was the hero and scored the tying goal late in the third to help take the game into overtime, Dell still couldn't hold down the fort in overtime. It doesn't matter if he's the backup or not – at this time of the season, playing too loose late in games isn't good.
