Sharks coach Todd McLellan challenges top players to 'pick it up'

Since the calender turned over to 2015, the San Jose Sharks have lost two games to the St. Louis Blues by a combined score of 14-4. 

While intervening victories over the Winnipeg Jets and the Minnesota Wild have served as something of a soothing balm for those lopsided defeats, the Sharks have struggled enormously of late against top teams.

According to Sharks bench boss Todd McLellan, it's an issue of San Jose's best players needing to pick it up and be better.

"There's some high-end players on our team that really have to pick it up, and there's also some role players that have to pick it up," McLellan told David Pollak of the San Jose Mercury News on Tuesday night. "We all have to grow as a group, and we have to get better in a lot of areas if we expect to compete against teams like St. Louis."

What has to be particularly concerning for the Sharks is their play without Joe Thornton in the lineup. Thornton hasn't played since New Years Eve, and the Sharks are a markedly different team without the aging top-line center in the lineup.

In four games without Thornton, the Sharks are controlling 47.9 percent of shot attempts at even strength - a paltry number, and well off their average with Thornton in the lineup.

Even more troubling, their power-play shot rate has gone into the tank with Thornton initiating from the half wall.

For years the Sharks have been a shot generating machine at 5-on-4, something that has continued this season. Only the vaunted Washington Capitals power play is generating shots more efficiently at 5-on-4 than San Jose.

Without Thornton over the past four games though, the Sharks are averaging just 38 shots per 60 minutes of power-play ice time. It's a paltry sample, but has to be a major concern for a club that is explicitly looking to the future and even reportedly tried to trade Thornton this past summer.

It would seem that the Sharks dodged a bullet when Thornton steadfastly refused to waive his no-trade clause.