Late goal dooms Sharks in first game since Blackwood trade

Part of goalie Mackenzie Blackwood’s brief legacy with the San Jose Sharks was his ability to give his team a chance in most of the games he played.

On Tuesday, Vitek Vanecek did the same for the Sharks against the Carolina Hurricanes.

But the Sharks, under siege for most of the third period, gave up two goals in the final 15:49 of regulation time in a 3-2 loss to Hurricanes at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, N.C.

With the game tied and the Hurricanes pressing, Macklin Celebrini, stationed next to the Sharks net, tried to backhand the puck out of the zone. But Hurricanes defenseman Jalen Chatfield stopped it and fired a shot from inside the blue line that beat a screened Vanecek with 2:39 left in the third period.

Vanecek finished with 25 saves, and Luke Kunin scored twice, but the Sharks lost their third straight game and fell to 2-3-0 on this six-game road trip that ends Thursday in St. Louis.

The Sharks (10-16-5) still have not beaten the Hurricanes on the road since Feb. 4, 2018. Since then, they are 0-3-3 in Raleigh.

“We don’t manage puck there in the third period,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “We give the momentum, obviously the tying goal and then the game-winning goal.”

The Sharks on Monday traded Blackwood, their No. 1 netminder, forward Givani Smith, and their own 2027 fifth-round pick to the Avalanche for goaltender Alexandar Georgiev, forward Nikolai Kovalenko, Colorado’s 2026 second-round selection, and a conditional fifth-round draft pick in 2025.

Both Georgiev and Kovalenko dressed for Tuesday’s game, with Georgiev backing up Vanecek and Kovalenko starting on the Sharks’ fourth line with Nico Sturm and Ty Dellandrea.

This season, after beginning the year with a 0-2-2 record, Blackwood, a popular figure in the Sharks’ dressing room, had a solid 6-6-1 record and a .916 save percentage in his last 14 appearances. That included a stellar 51-save performance on Saturday in the Sharks’ 3-1 loss to the Florida Panthers.

“Sad, I would say,” Sharks forward William Eklund said of his reaction to the trade. “He was a good friend of mine, and he’s going to be a good friend of mine for (a long time). It’s part of business, but it’s also a human being. It’s tough to see a friend going away.”

Among goalies who had played at least 10 games, Blackwood, per Money Puck, was 17th in goals saved above expected (3.9) and 19th in goals saved above expected per 60 minutes (0.221).

“He was kind of our backbone here these first 30 games, so it’s difficult,” Warsofsky said of Blackwood before the game on the Sharks Audio Network. “You’ve got to talk through it. (But) you go out and move forward, and just like anything in life, when adversity hits you, how do you respond?”

“I know it’ll be tough for our group,” Sharks general manager Mike Grier said Monday. “I think our group really likes (Blackwood) and enjoyed playing in front of him.”

Vanecek was making his first appearance since Thursday when he allowed five goals on 12 shots in the opening period of San Jose’s 8-1 loss to the Lightning.

Vanecek made 18 saves in the first two periods Tuesday. But with San Jose leading 2-1 in the third, defenseman and ex-Shark Brent Burns finished off a pretty passing play by the Hurricanes and beat Vanecek at the 4:11 mark of the third period for his second goal of the season.

The Sharks have ended a stretch of games against the NHL’s highest-scoring teams. Before Tuesday, Washington (4.04 goals per game), Tampa Bay (3.92), Florida (3.75), and Carolina (3.74) were the top four teams in the league in average goals scored per game.

SMITH TO IR: Before Tuesday’s game, the Sharks placed rookie forward Will Smith on injured reserve, meaning he’ll also have to miss Thursday’s game against the St. Louis Blues to end the road trip.

The Sharks activated Barclay Goodrow off IR to take Smith’s spot on the 23-man roster, and he started the game on a line with Kunin and Alexander Wennberg.

Smith, who had been considered day-to-day with an upper-body injury, can be activated as early as Friday. The Sharks play the Utah Hockey Club on Saturday to start a three-game homestand.

In 24 games this season, Smith has 11 points, which was tied for sixth-most among all NHL rookies before Tuesday’s games.

Goodrow was placed on IR on Nov. 28, a day after he absorbed a high hit from Ottawa Senators forward Ridly Greig. He had been skating with the team recently. Goodrow has two goals in 25 games this season but is averaging 14:46 in ice time per game and is one of the Sharks’ leading penalty killers.

MUKHAMADULLIN RECALLED: After the game, the Sharks announced that defenseman Shakir Mukhamadullin had been recalled from the AHL and that defenseman Jack Thompson and forward Ethan Cardwell had been loaned back to the Barracuda.

Mukhamadullin had six assists in 14 games with the Barracuda this season after the Sharks assigned him to the AHL on Oct. 22. Thompson, who has been in the NHL for most of the season, had five points in 14 games with the Sharks. Cardwell had played in three games since his recall on Nov. 28 and scored his first NHL goal the next day against the Seattle Kraken.