Contrasting lines will collide Monday night, and both can be extended when San Jose Sharks visits the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The sharks have dropped eight in a row (0-5-3) after a 5-3 road loss to the Ottawa senators on Saturday.
Maple Leafs stretched his winning line to five matches on Sunday by defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-5 in overtime to complete a four-match road trip.
When San Jose extended his losing line, San Jose 4-1 was surpassed during the third period in Ottawa.
As one can expect, frustration grows.
“It’s pretty tough,” said the Sharks defender Jake Walman. “It eats you a little from the inside. You get into buildings where teams – I mean, that is the reality in it – where other teams feel that they can play safely against us, and sometimes we have to beat it down and turn a page.”
The sharks are 0-2-2 to open their seven-game trip. They dropped the first match in the trip 3-2 against Calgary Flames and lost the next two in overtime against Winnipeg Jets and Montreal Canadiens.
“We’re in play right now,” said Sharks defender Mario Ferraro. “We’re right there. But the little margin for wrong, it’s so big, right? We don’t find a way to remain disciplined enough to play all 60 minutes, or whatever it is, to pull out these winnings. I think it’s just a bit of the immaturity in our game as a whole, as a team.”
Will Smith, Tyler Toffoli and former Maple Leaf Timothy Liljegren scored San Jose.
“I just hope, a couple of years from now on, that these games will be meaningful,” Walman said. “Just don’t want to get stuck in this position for so long.”
Maple Leafs will be home for just the competition against the sharks before they hit the road in three matches.
They have won eight out of nine but they have done so while they did not necessarily play as well as they can. The Maple Leafs were not satisfied with their performance in a 3-2 victory over the New York Rangers on Friday when they were surpassed 35-16 and twice handed over one goals.
They led 2-0 before five minutes had been played on Sunday, but dragged 3-2 after the first period. They led 5-4 after two periods but lost the lead 10 seconds into the third period.
“That’s not how we wanted to pull it up,” said Toronto coach Craig Berube. “We made a couple of mistakes and sat down in a little hole. But guys stayed with it, climbed out of it and found a way to win the victory.”
William Nylander won it with a solo string on overtime and carried the puck along the left wing from the Toronto end before he cut in the high place and shooting.
“It’s good to win these games,” Nylander said. “It’s the positive you can remove from it. Even if we don’t play well, we can still win the game.”
Captain Auston Matthews scored during the second period on Sunday, his 390th career goal to move past Darryl Sittler to others on Maple Leafs’ constantly points list. Mats Sundin (420) is first.
“It’s nice to be in the same sense as a guy like Darryl Sittler, obviously a big leaf,” Matthews said.
Toronto defender Christopher Tanev (Axel) was put on damaged reserve.
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