With a bit more poise and good fortune, the San Jose Sharks could be riding a modest winning streak going into their game with the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday.

Instead, the Sharks have a couple of days to regroup after a back-and-forth game Saturday turned into an aggravating 4-3 loss to the Utah Hockey Club at SAP Center.

Leading 3-2 approaching the midway point of the third period, the Sharks gave up an even-strength goal at the 9:49 mark to Michael Carcone before allowing a power play goal to Clayton Keller with 43.8 seconds left in regulation time.

The script felt all too familiar in the Sharks’ fourth loss in five games. On Tuesday against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Sharks also coughed up a third-period lead, allowing two goals in the final 15:49, including one with 2:39 to go, in a 3-2 loss in Raleigh.

“(Utah) definitely had a push in the third,” said Sharks defenseman Cody Ceci. “We tried to handle it. Going forward, we’ll try and get more of a killer instinct than we have in the past.

“We’ve taken a big step to be in these close games and get wins, so I think the next step would be to get the killer instinct in the third and not be on our heels too much and try and survive games.”

The Sharks were also dominated in the third period by the St. Louis Blues on Thursday. They took a two-goal lead into the final 20 minutes but were out-chanced 16-2, per Natural Stat Trick, before holding on for a gutty, if uncomfortable, 4-3 win to end a six-game road trip.

Nevertheless, while the Sharks have been much more competitive this season than last, third-period leads of late have felt tenuous at best. Now the Sharks are 6-3-1 when holding the lead after 40 minutes, with a treacherous schedule upcoming.

Perhaps this is just the stage the Sharks (11-17-5) are in: good enough to be competitive most nights but not always good enough to finish the job.

“We have a younger group that’s learning as we go, but we’re at what, game 33 tonight? We should start picking up on this pretty quickly, and unfortunately, we’re not,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “We have to go out and try to win hockey games, get on the attack, and that’s something we’ve talked about all year.”

The Sharks held the lead in the second and third periods Saturday but failed to build on them.

Mikael Granlund scored from a sharp angle at the 14:11 mark of the second period to give the Sharks a 2-1 lead. San Jose then had a chance to go up by two, as Utah forward Nick Bjugstad took a roughing penalty less than two minutes later.

But the Sharks did nothing with the man advantage, and later in the second, Utah, on its own power play, tied it up with 1:08 left before intermission on a goal by Nick Schmaltz.

“We just didn’t have a killer instinct to go win a hockey game. We’re still learning that,” Warsofsky said. “It’s disappointing because we came off a long road trip, dug in, worked hard, and did some good things tonight. But in the third period, we’ve got to find a way to go win a hockey game.”

Part of the solution is staying out of the penalty box.

The Sharks had to kill four penalties in the first two periods Saturday and two more in the third. The Sharks might have disputed some of those calls, but spending so much time defending had an adverse effect, wearing down some of their most relied-upon skaters.

The Sharks have now had to try and kill 30 penalties in their last eight games — way too many.