I thought both Bleach Clean and MS are correct on their assessments of the game. We lost a lot of puck battles along the boards; the Sharks collapsed around the puck carrier a lot and whenever we tried to pass it along, a Shark would come and scoop it up. On one-on-one battles, I found that we lost a substantial number compared to the games we had against New Jersey. Look at their second goal: Tanev loses the puck along the boards from Stanton and the Shark, boxing him out, quickly centers from behind the net for a goal. Playing against a larger team like San Jose really hampers our battle along the boards.
That being said, whenever we did win puck battles we weren't able to get a quality chance within the slot or actually drive the play to the net. I could count on one hand the number of quality chances we had near the net. No matter how many battles you can win along the boards, if you can't get a quality shot off, it's not going to be effective in the long run.
Our neutral zone play was horrendous also. Not only was San Jose able to take away passing lanes and clog entries into their zone, they were able to enter ours with impunity. We send two guys into forecheck but their defence is so effective in moving the puck out, we weren't able to generate many turnovers, resulting in their forwards slicing through the neutral zone like a hot knife; in contrast, they had guys stand up near their blue line, making it difficult for us to get in, and making us dump and chase where they could win battles along the boards and get it out.
