CSN Bay Area

SAN JOSE –- It had been more than four years since star center Joe Thornton wasn’t in the Sharks lineup.

It had been more than five years since San Jose gave up a touchdown’s worth of goals in its own building.

Rather than use the loss of Thornton as a rallying point, the Sharks looked positively lost and overmatched against a St. Louis team that was hungry to end a five-game road losing streak. From the opening minute, the Sharks had trouble completing even the most simple of passes, and the 7-2 drubbing – the most goals they allowed at home since Nov. 25, 2009 – was reflective of the mismatch.

After the previous Sharks-Blues game just two weeks ago -– a heavy battle between what looked to be two of the Western Conference’s best teams -– defenseman Brent Burns called it a “man’s game” in describing the physical nature of the engagement.

On Saturday night, though, it was men against boys.

[KURZ: Instant Replay: Thornton-less Sharks embarrassed by Blues]

What went wrong?

"Probably effort – it just wasn't there,” Joe Pavelski said. “Right from the start, we didn't have the start we wanted. We didn't engage like we can. It's disappointing, that's the biggest thing."

Logan Couture said: “Right from the first shift we weren’t even in that game. … It’s very disappointing to do that in any game, especially in your home building, to let a team that played last night come in and dominate you from the very first second of the game.”

Earlier this season, the Sharks were able to overcome the loss of their best defenseman when Marc-Edouard Vlasic was unavailable for a game against Minnesota on Dec. 11. San Jose squeaked out a gutsy 2-1 win.

They couldn’t repeat the task with Thornton in street clothes.

“If you can’t win missing one player, then you’re not going to go very far,” Couture said. “Injuries happen, that’s part of the game. You’ve still got enough players on your team in your organization to compete at an NHL level. We didn’t compete at an NHL level tonight. I don’t even think we were close.”

Despite their overall malaise, the Sharks actually had a lead on the Blues, when Pavelski’s bad-angle shot found just enough daylight over Brian Elliott’s shoulder at 18:22 of the first period to make it 2-1. That lead lasted all of 54 seconds, though, and the Sharks escaping the first period with a 2-2 tie was flat out lucky.

St. Louis scored twice in the second, including Kevin Shattenkirk’s marker at 19:51. That gave St. Louis a 4-2 advantage after 40 minutes, and there was no reason at that point to think that the Sharks would be able to rally, especially without Thornton.

Todd McLellan said: “We failed that test miserably, didn’t we? On a night when we needed everybody to elevate their game a little bit – one, due to the opponent and two, we had lost a player that was important – we didn’t do that. We did the exact opposite. We sagged.

“To a man, we weren’t prepared to play physically or mentally for the first 15-17 minutes of the game, and then after that they felt good in our building and played their game the whole night. We weren’t even remotely close to being in that game.”

The power play was especially poor, generating just five shots and zero goals in six chances spread over more than nine minutes. That is probably where they missed Thornton the most, but the Sharks didn’t look any better at even-strength or on the penalty kill, where they allowed a pair of Blues scores.

The goaltending did them no favors, either, as Antti Niemi allowed three stoppable shots to get past him, and six total before he was pulled for Alex Stalock in the third period.

This was a total team defeat.

“We weren’t good in any aspect,” Vlasic said.