SAN JOSE – The San Jose Sharks are going to have to tighten things up on defense and get some production from their top six forwards if they want to remain competitive without injured centermen Tomas Hertl and Logan Couture.
Top-line forwards Anthony Duclair and Fabian Zetterlund gave the Sharks a chance on Saturday as both collected two points in regulation time against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Then Boone Jenner scored with 12.9 seconds left, helping to give Columbus a 4-3 win at SAP Center. A one-handed backhand by Jenner got under and past Sharks goalie Kaapo Kahkonen, who finished with 37 saves.
Duclair had two goals and Zetterlund added a goal and an assist, as the Sharks, debuting their latest black uniforms, erased a 3-1 deficit in the second period.
Just 19 seconds after Dmitri Voronkov gave Columbus a two-goal lead at the 7:14 mark of the second, Duclair took a pass from Zetterlund, got in close, and beat Elvis Merzlikins with a backhand to forehand move to score his 11th of the season.
Then on a Sharks power play, Zetterlund took a pass from Calen Addison and one-timed a shot near the faceoff dot past Merzlikins for his 15th goal of the season, tying him with Hertl for the team lead.
The Sharks are now 1-2-0 without both Hertl and Couture.
Couture is improving, Sharks coach David Quinn said Saturday morning, but there’s still no indication as to when both he and Hertl will be able to return from their respective lower body injuries.
Couture has now missed three straight games after he recently had a recurrence of an injury, osteitis pubis, that kept him out for all of training camp and the entire first half of the season.
Quinn said Couture, 34, remains week to week, adding, though, that he can walk. Couture said last month that when his injury was at its worst late last year, he couldn’t even get out of bed or play with his young son, now just over six months old.
“He’s getting better, so that’s a good sign,” Quinn said of Couture. “He’s getting dressed, he’s getting out of bed. He’s picking his son up.”
Hertl was expected to miss several weeks after he elected to have surgery to remove loose cartilage in his left knee on Monday. At the time, Sharks general manager Mike Grier said in a statement the timetable for Hertl to return would be determined, “based on the findings of the procedure and his rehabilitation.”
Quinn didn’t have an updated timeline on Hertl and estimated that it could be another week before more is known. There is still optimism that Hertl can return before the end of the regular season in April.
The Sharks trailed 2-1 after the first period, as they survived three breakaways from Johnny Gaudreau but still gave up goals to Zach Werenski and Kirill Marchenko.
Duclair opened the scoring, as he slid a puck – perhaps unintentionally – under the pads of Elvis Merzlikins on a breakaway, giving the Sharks a 1-0 lead at the 3:39 mark of the first period.
But the Sharks played a largely unstructured game for the first 20 minutes. Gaudreau was gifted three breakaways in five minutes – failing to convert one opportunity after deking out Kahkonen, hitting the post on his next try, and firing a shot high on a third chance.
The Blue Jackets tied the game 1-1 after Werenski was left alone near the slot and fired a puck past a partially screened Kahkonen at the 15:16 mark, then took the lead after Marchenko found the short side on the Sharks’ goalie just 1:08 later.
