The San Jose Sharks are foundering as they prepare to visit the Dallas Stars on Saturday night.
It will be the second game of a back-to-back set and the third road contest in four nights for the Sharks, who lost 4-1 to the host Minnesota Wild on Friday night.
San Jose has lost four straight games and six of the past seven. The Sharks have been outscored 28-12 in those seven contests.
“Not to be complacent, (but) none of us want to be in this spot,” San Jose captain Macklin Celebrini said after Friday’s loss. “But that’s how it goes sometimes.”
The team held a players-only meeting after a 7-2 road loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday.
“It’s unacceptable. It’s not good enough. To a man, to a team. It’s not on the coaches right now,” San Jose’s Kiefer Sherwood said. “We’re not winning our battles, we’re not being hard to play against, we’re not making plays, we’re just … it’s not good enough. We have to turn it here. We have to stick together here.”
Celebrini scored the team’s lone goal on Friday, and Yaroslav Askarov made 25 saves.
“We definitely played a lot better game,” Celebrini said of the Friday performance coming off the players-only meeting. “From our process to what we did on the ice, it hurt us. But we played better.”
Celebrini’s goal tied the game 1-1 with 7:49 remaining in the second period.
“I thought it was pretty good,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “The first two periods, I thought we (played) probably our best two periods of the year. We worked harder; thought we got above quicker and reloaded quicker.”
The Stars, meanwhile, fell 2-1 in a shootout to the host Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday in the second game of a two-game trip. Dallas had won its previous two contests and is 2-2-1 in its past five games.
Backup goaltender Casey DeSmith made 29 saves, and Mikko Rantanen scored a goal for the third consecutive game. Rantanen has five points (three goals, two assists) in a four-game point streak.
Wyatt Johnston got the lone assist to run his point streak to four games (one goal, five assists). He also has points in six of his past seven contests (three goals, seven assists).
Dallas led 1-0 before the Blue Jackets tied the score with 3:14 left in regulation.
Despite the loss, Stars coach Glen Gulutzan took comfort in his team’s defensive effort Thursday, which followed an uncharacteristic 6-5 win over the host Washington Capitals on Tuesday.
“It was a good hockey game, tight checking, and it was back to our identity,” Gulutzan said. “But the result still stung.”
“We did a lot of good things,” defenseman Tyler Myers said. “We still left a point out there, so there is always room to get better.”
The Stars will get that opportunity, as they will begin a four-game homestand Saturday night.
Defenseman Miro Heiskanen missed Thursday’s game with an upper-body injury sustained Tuesday. Gulutzan said Heiskanen might return on Saturday.
Sam Steel did not play Thursday due to personal reasons.
