SAN JOSE, Calif. _ Joe Thornton's emotions got the better of him as he was ejected midway through Saturday's game against the St. Louis Blues for spearing Paul Stastny.
Unfortunately for the San Jose Sharks, it was one of the few times they showed any real passion.
The Sharks missed a handful of handful of scoring opportunities in the first period and weren't able to generate much the rest of the way in what became a frustrating 4-0 loss to the Blues at SAP Center.
St. Louis scored twice in the second period and twice more in the third as the Sharks lost for the third time in four games. The Sharks whiffed on three power play chances, including a brief 5 on 3 opportunity in the second period, in losing to the Blues for the second time this season.
Thornton was ejected at the 11:09 mark of the second period after the Sharks were down 2-0.
As Thornton and Stastny skated away after a faceoff, the two players appeared to exchange words before Thornton raised his stick into the midsection of Stastny.
Stastny was not given a penalty on the sequence for Thornton was given a five-minor major and a game misconduct.
The Sharks came out with plenty of fire as they had a handful of scoring chances in the first several minutes of the first period.
Chris Tierney had a breakaway but his attempt went off the post to the left of Blues goalie Carter Hutton and out of harm's way. Thornton was then denied shortly after by Hutton from close range.
It wasn't an ideal way for the Sharks to start one of their busier stretches of the season, as Saturday's game was the first of five in eight days.
The Sharks host the Winnipeg Jets on Monday afternoon, play in Los Angeles against the Kings on Wednesday and are back home Thursday against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Saturday, they host Colorado, then go on the road to face the Avalanche in Denver on Monday and the Jets in Winnipeg on Tuesday.
Last season, the Sharks went 8-2-2 in January, the first of three straight months where they had at least eight wins. The Sharks were 2-2-1 this month going into Saturday's game.
"There's no doubt that these are the tough days of the season," Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said Saturday morning. "The finish line is still quite a ways in the distance, but the points are incredibly important and valuable. This is usually the time when the good teams start to separate themselves, when we started to last year."
The bumps and bruises of the first half of the season have started to add up, as well.
Joonas Donskoi missed Saturday's game with an upper body injury, the first time this season he's been out of a game because of an injury.
The Sharks did get two defensemen back for their game against the Blues. David Schlemko returned after he missed the last five games with an upper body injury and Paul Martin was back after he missed Wednesday' game against Calgary.
The Sharks are going to need all hands all deck with seven more games in the next 12 days before the NHL all-star break.
"We try and keep it fresh," DeBoer said. "We talk about smaller segments, like we did going onto Christmas _ push them hard going into the last two weeks. ... Break it down into some smaller segments so it doesn't look quite as daunting as when you look at the entire schedule."
_Mikkel Boedker, who had a hat trick Tuesday against Edmonton and a total of four goals and two assists in his last five games before Saturday, was moved up to the Sharks' second line with Logan Couture and Kevin Labanc. Tommy Wingels re-entered the lineup after sitting out the last two games and played on the fourth line with Micheal Haley and Melker Karlsson. Forward Ryan Carpenter was recalled Saturday from the Barracuda but did not play.
