Nerd Rage: Sharks on the Ocean Floor

During the 1992-93 season, the San Jose Sharks were in just their second season as an NHL team. While the roster did have some familiar names (future playoff hero Arturs Irbe, young Sandis Ozolinsh and Ray Whitney, and current NHL coaches Dean Evason and Mike Sullivan), they were dreadful in nearly every aspect. They were at or near the bottom of the league in every metric, competing with their expansion mate in the Ottawa Senators for the dubious last-place distinction. The team is often thrown into consideration with the 1974-75 Washington Capitals and the 1989-90 Quebec Nordiques for the “honor” of the worst team in NHL history.

Dear reader, the 2023-24 iteration of those Sharks is taking that as a challenge.

Typically, when a team gets shredded by their opponent in the previous game, they come in to the next one more focused and prepared to prove they aren’t a doormat for the rest of the league. When the Sharks got blown out 10-1 by the Vancouver Canucks on November 2nd, how did they respond? Getting punched in the mouth again by the Pittsburgh Penguins 10-2. The same Penguins team that had lost five of their previous six games, sat at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, and hadn’t played in five days prior to the game. A five-goal second period later, and whatever fight the Sharks came in to the game with had all but evaporated.

Those two games have represented the nadir for what has been an already dismal season for the Sharks. The loss has knocked the team down to 0-11-1 on the season, and their eleven-game losing streak ties the 1943-44 New York Rangers and the 2017-18 and 2021-22 renditions of the Arizona Coyotes for the longest to start the season. The Sharks have become the first team to let go of ten goals in back-to-back games since the Boston Bruins in 1965.

Those historical lows are bad enough on their own, but some of their other statistics paint a more disturbing picture. The Sharks’ -43 goal differential is the worst mark put up by any team in their first eleven games; for added context, their goal differential of -17 in the last two games would still be the worst of this season. Their 1.09 goals per game isn’t just the lowest mark in the league by a full goal (the Washington Capitals have 1.9), but it also would be the third-lowest in league history; the Sharks are performing worse on offense than teams from almost a full century ago. Their defense, while not on the same historic level of ineptitude, is still nearly a full goal lower than the Edmonton Oilers and Minnesota Wild for worst in the league.

It’s obviously too soon to say for certain that this version of the Sharks is vying for the title of the worst team in NHL history, but most teams at this point have at least something to show for themselves. The only thing the Sharks have is Mackenzie Blackwood single-handedly getting them a point against Colorado. After that, there’s been no positives to latch on to.

David Quinn can say all he wants that he’s tired of asking questions about job security, but can he honestly say he’s surprised? Sure, everyone was expecting San Jose to be in the running for the top overall selection in next year’s draft, but in this fashion? There has been nothing to indicate this team has any viable foundation for its future, and Quinn has been around the sport long enough to know that that falls on his shoulders. When he calls his team a “fragile group” after the third goal that ultimately blew the doors off, hockey fans can already see the translation: the Sharks gave up, and that mentality has extended in nearly every aspect of the organization. If that is truly the case, then there’s no reason for Quinn to be behind the bench any further.

While Quinn is invariably part of the problem, the bigger issue revolves around GM Mike Grier. In the sixteen months that he’s been at the helm of the Sharks, I have personally seen very little encouraging signs that he’s the answer. Sure, predecessor Doug Wilson handcuffed the team with several terrible contracts before his departure, but Grier hasn’t necessarily done himself any favors. It was under his watch that the Sharks traded away franchise defenseman Brent Burns for nothing to Carolina. It was his decision to “fix” the goaltending logjam by flipping Adin Hill to Vegas for a mid-round pick; it turned out to be the second coming of the Miikka Kiprusoff trade, except likely without getting a Marc-Edouard Vlasic back. It was on his authority that the Timo Meier trade turned into a convoluted mess and the Sharks got nowhere close to the value they could have gotten out of who was then their best trade asset.

Then came Grier’s piece de resistance of mismanagement: the Erik Karlsson trade. This offseason, Grier and the Sharks had the rare opportunity to get out of the star defenseman’s contract after a Norris Trophy-winning season. However, Grier showed an aversion to retaining salary during the deal, expecting teams to just be willing to eat the brunt of Karlsson’s $11.5 million AAV for the next four years. Unsurprisingly, most teams balked at the decision, and it was looking like Grier would waste a golden opportunity. Eventually, a deal would take place to move Karlsson to Pittsburgh with San Jose only retaining $1.5 million in salary, but the package coming back was well short on value. San Jose would get no prospects, a conditional first-round pick from Pittsburgh with top-ten protections, and some trade chips in Mikael Granlund, Jan Rutta, and Mike Hoffman from Montreal. The most hyped trade all offseason, and Grier had little to nothing to show for himself. San Jose’s two best trade chips were now gone, and there’s little in terms of bankable assets that the Sharks got from either. Even if the likes of Hoffman and Granlund are flipped at the deadline, the combined value of the package likely won’t add up to anything if the Sharks were willing to just absorb more salary.

The team San Jose is forced to bear witness to is reflective of the process. Tomas Hertl is the only banakble player they have, and his contract doesn’t expire until 2030, sapping his trade value. Vlasic is only here because his decline has made his contract all but immovable. Logan Couture hasn’t played a game yet all season due to an injury that still has no timetable for his return, and he turns 35 in March. Kevin LaBanc has regressed to the point Quinn would play an extra defenseman over him. The Shark have seven of the bottom ten players in plus/minus rating. None of the Sharks’ expiring contracts have shown anything to suggest they’re worth more than late-round picks at the deadline. Outside of the occasional flashes by the likes of Fabian Zetterlund, William Eklund, and Thomas Bordeleau, there is no reason to remotely watch this team outside of satiating one’s masochistic tendencies.

The sad part is that there’s no real way to tell when things will get any better. Even if Will Smith is who the Sharks hope he is and the Sharks land the top overall pick for likely Macklin Celebrini, those are just two players on a team that needs everything. They’re not going to do much to fix the shoddy defense and awful goaltending, or make the team better by themselves single-handedly. This is reaching the point of rebuilding a rebuild, burning everything to the ground and trading remotely anything of value when any substantial deal comes along.

In a season where the Edmonton Oilers are running the risk of wasting two of the best players in the world again and the Ottawa Senators are witnessing a fanbase in the early stages of a revolt, it’s crazy that both can look at San Jose and say that things could always be worse. The Sharks now have to take a look in the mirror and do what they can to avoid a permanent rebuild like teams like Buffalo and Arizona have had to endure. Unfortunately for them, a season like this could mean that process is going to take a while.