The San Jose Sharks faced some headwinds in their game against the Minnesota Wild on Sunday night.
The Sharks were playing their second game in as many nights — just like the Wild were — but were also dealing with an illness now running through the locker room, sapping some of the team’s energy.
The biggest obstacle, though, was the play of Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov, who recorded his third hat trick of the season to help hand the Sharks a disappointing 4-3 loss at Xcel Energy Center.
With the Sharks leading 3-2, Kaprizov scored at the 2:38 and 16:01 mark of the third period, with the second goal completing the hat trick and putting the Wild ahead to stay as San Jose was sent to its seventh straight loss.
“When you don’t have it, you’ve got to find a way to hang around and I thought that’s what we did,” Sharks coach David Quinn said. “It was just unfortunate. They’ve got Kaprizov and we don’t.”
Anthony Duclair, Mikael Granlund, and Nico Sturm all scored for the Sharks (15-39-6), who managed just 15 shots on net as they completed a two-game road trip with a 0-1-1 record.
The Sharks led the Wild on two occasions Sunday, including in the third period as the two teams traded goals.
After Duclair scored his 14th of the season 23 seconds in for a 3-2 Sharks lead, Kaprizov tied it, one-timing a pass from Matt Boldy past goalie Kaapo Kahkonen, who made 28 saves for the game.
Kaprizov’s third goal of the game was also his 29th goal of the season, as he became the fifth-fastest active player to 300 career points. Having now played 258 games, he’s behind only Sidney Crosby (219), Alex Ovechkin (237), Connor McDavid (240) and Evgeni Malkin (240).
“He’s a phenomenal player,” Sturm said of Kaprizov, his one-time Wild teammate. “That third goal, that’s him. He gets lost as the third guy high, there’s a puck battle, and he’s got the smarts to where he just waits for the puck to squirt out to him.”
The Sharks now start a three-game homestand on Tuesday against the Dallas Stars.
The Sharks were without center William Eklund, who came down with an illness Sunday. With Eklund unavailable, Kevin Labanc drew back into the lineup after he was a healthy scratch Saturday in Dallas and Luke Kunin moved into Eklund’s role as the Sharks’ second-line center.
Eklund had goals in each of the last two Sharks’ games and for the season has 10 goals and 27 points in 58 games.
Sunday’s game was Kahkonen’s first against his former team. He was drafted by the Wild in 2014 in the fourth round and played three-plus seasons in the organization before he was acquired by the Sharks two years ago for defenseman Jacob Middleton.
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Kahkonen, though, was mainly concerned about bouncing back after two recent sub-par outings. In games against New Jersey and Anaheim last week, Kahkonen stopped 48 of a combined 60 shots for an .800 save percentage.
Kahkonen entered Sunday with a .898 save percentage in 29 games this season and before the last two games, was one of the NHL’s leaders in goals saved above expected.
“There’s always things that you can do better, and I felt really good tonight,” Kahkonen said. “Obviously a few really nice goals by their top player, so it’s a frustrating result, but you always look to work on those subtle details of the game.”
