SAN JOSE – There’s no escaping from the fact that the San Jose Sharks might finish with the NHL’s worst record for the second straight season.
If so, they can at least take solace in the production of some of their younger players.
Collin Graf had his first two-goal game in the NHL and Will Smith had another two-point game as the last-place Sharks beat the 31st-place Chicago Blackhawks 4-2 on Thursday before an announced crowd of 13,546 at SAP Center.
Graf’s second goal at the 10:17 mark of the second period proved to be the game-winner.
Toward the tail end of a Sharks power play, Smith, stationed near the faceoff dot, tried to one-time a pass from Shakir Mukhamadullin but didn’t get all of it as the puck slid toward the Blackhawks’ net.
Graf, now in a top-six role while playing in all situations, was there to tip it in for his third goal in two games and fourth of the year.
“He really worked hard this summer,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said of Graf, who signed with the Sharks last spring as a college free agent. “He came in in great shape. You could tell he worked on his skating, worked on his conditioning. We saw that in training camp.
“I think his hockey sense really helps him at this level of staying here, because you trust him in the lineup. Obviously, he gets rewarded with goals tonight, but he does the little things that probably a lot of people don’t see.”
Tyler Toffoli scored an empty-net goal with 32.1 seconds left to seal the win for San Jose. Before that, rookies had scored the last seven Sharks goals, a team record, over the last three games.
Along with Graf’s three, Smith has two and Nikolai Kovalenko and Patrick Giles each have one.
“I feel like every game (Graf’s) just getting better and better, and it’s fun to see,” said Sharks center Alexander Wennberg, who set up Graf’s first period goal. “He’s not only playing offensively, he’s playing PK, making great plays defensively. Those players that play all over the ice, a 200-foot game, it’s really important to have.”
The Sharks’ win marked just the 11th time in 22 games that the Sharks have won when leading after two periods. The Blackhawks’ offense took a hit when center Connor Bedard, the team’s leading scorer, was given a 10-minute misconduct for abuse of officials at the 9:10 mark of the third period.
Bedard said after the game that the misconduct was for something he said to the officials after he got back to the Blackhawks’ bench following what he felt was uncalled trip.
“I don’t think it was too crazy, but he’s the ref, so he gets to make that call,” Bedard said. “You don’t really expect that, but it happens.”
Smith scored in the first period on a one-timer off a pass from Macklin Celebrini. Smith now has 13 goals on the season, moving him into third place in that category among all rookies, behind only Celebrini and Philadelphia Flyers winger Matvei Michkov.
Making his sixth straight start, goalie Alexandar Georgiev made 24 saves as the Sharks snapped a three-game losing streak and improved their record on this eight-game homestand to 1-2-0.
The Sharks now have 45 points, four fewer than the Blackhawks, and have 15 games left, starting with Saturday’s matinee at home against Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals. Chicago has 16 games left.
If the Sharks do finish 32nd this season, they will again have a 25.5% chance of winning the draft lottery, to be held sometime during the playoffs. The Sharks won the lottery last season and drafted Celebrini, now a cornerstone of the organization.
The Sharks coaches and players are not concerned about draft picks right now. They just want to finish what’s left of the season as strong as possible, letting the scouts and upper management worry about the draft.
“Obviously, we want to win every game we play. That’s what this sport is all about,” Warsofsky said before Thursday’s game.
“But the biggest thing that I’ve said all year is we want to be a team that competes every single night, and our process will take care of the results. You don’t just go into the game and say, ‘We’re going to win the game.’ You can’t control that. We can control our attitudes, our energy, how hard we compete, and how quickly we pick up our concepts.
“I think the biggest thing is, how do we want to feel at the end of these 16 games? Would we want to keep the momentum going to the future looking pretty bright, or do we want to restart this all process all over again in training camp? So that’s what we have to answer.”
