ANAHEIM — For goalie Antero Niittymaki, the preseason is more about adjusting to a new workplace than wins and losses.
Even so, his first performance in teal Wednesday night wasn’t one he will want to remember after he gave up four goals on 12 shots over two periods as the Anaheim Ducks spanked the Sharks 5-2 at the Honda Center in San Jose’s exhibition opener.
“The second period was just kind of a disaster,” Niittymaki said. “Every bounce was going in. It was one of those things. You learn from them and you move on. It’s a good thing it’s preseason, that it happens now.”
Niittymaki is one half of the Finnish goaltending tandem — along with Antti Niemi — signed over the summer after general manager Doug Wilson determined that the Evgeni Nabokov era had ended. Niittymaki, 30, has had only four days in training camp to get used to being on the ice with his new teammates, and he expected some miscommunication.
Which gets back to that second period.
The Sharks were trailing 1-0 on a first-period goal by Anaheim’s Corey Perry, and forward Jamie McGinn had just clanked a shot off the Ducks’ crossbar.
Seconds later, Jason Demers failed to clear the puck, Nick Petrecki was caught flat-footed beside the San Jose net, Niittymaki was out of position, and the Ducks had doubled their advantage with Aaron Voros taking advantage of the misplay.
“We just got mixed up in the signals,” said Demers, who finished the night at minus-3, as did Petrecki. “We shouldn’t have been going toward the goalie, but we ended up putting Niitty in a jam, and that’s what happens.”
The Anaheim lead grew to 3-0 later in the period when Danny Syvret’s shot deflected into the net off Niclas Wallin’s right skate, and 18 seconds later it was 4-0 when Ryan Getzlaf’s slap shot found the back of the net.
San Jose did have plenty of chances, outshooting Anaheim 40-18, but failed to score until the third period when Ducks backup Timo Pielmeier, a former Shark, replaced Jonas Hiller and was beaten by Torrey Mitchell and Taylor Doherty.
Jason Blake scored Anaheim’s fifth goal off Sharks backup Alex Stalock, who had been slated to play the final 20 minutes.
McLellan’s lineup featured only one of his top two lines as he played Joe Thornton, Devin Setoguchi and Ryane Clowe while leaving Patrick Marleau, Joe Pavelski and Dany Heatley in San Jose. His top three defensemen — Dan Boyle, Douglas Murray and Marc-Edouard Vlasic — also stayed home.
The coach blamed his defense, not his goalie, for the miscommunication and did find some positives in the loss.
“We had a lot of looks at the net. I thought we retrieved a lot of pucks off of shots. Our forecheck got better as the night went on,” said McLellan, who said the fact the Ducks were playing their second exhibition worked to their advantage.
And he planned to use the defeat to get his team’s attention.
“When I go in now and I bark at them because they’ve got to get up to game pace and game intensity, they know what I’m talking about,” he said. “The best thing we can do is go back to the ones that didn’t play and tell them summer hockey is over.”
The two teams play again Friday at HP Pavilion with Niemi expected to start in goal.
For more on the Sharks, see David Pollak’s Working the Corners blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/sharks. Contact him at 408-920-5940.
