Tag: san jose sharks

Nerd Rage: Dead in the Water…Again

Image Credit: Jason Parkhurst

Picture this scene, if you will.

Your hockey team just scored a goal and got a power play. They are working their way back into a game against their biggest rival that they have no business being close in. Another goal, and the momentum will completely shift in their favor. Then, for some inexplicable reason, their goaltender comes out of the crease to get the puck, completely whiffs on the play, and ends up being closer to the blue line than the net as the opponent picks up as easy a shorthanded goal as you can imagine.

In a single boneheaded moment, Vitek Vanecek summed up the 2024-25 season for the San Jose Sharks.

You may remember that I talked about the Sharks around this time last season. When that article was made, that rendition of the Sharks had just given up ten goals in back-to back games and looked dead set on flirting with the status of being the worst team in NHL history. While this year’s version has done nothing quite that egregious yet, they have succeeded in completing a piece of dubious history themselves. After Saturday’s loss to the Vegas Golden Knights, the Sharks have become the first team in NHL history to lose nine straight games to start back-to-back years.

While last year’s Sharks team ultimately avoided breaking the wrong type of records (hi, Chicago White Sox), they were still horrifically overmatched by almost every team in the league. They predictably finished dead last and placed at or near the bottom of the league in every possible metric. When analytics, basic statistics, and even the eye test unanimously condemn a team’s performance, that’s a telling sign things could potentially get worse before they get better.

The lost season resulted in the Sharks once again having to sell at the deadline. For the most part, it was basic fare: Anthony Duclair going as a mid-season rental to Tampa Bay, Kaapo Kahkonen moving to goalie-starved New Jersey, Radim Simek getting swapped for Klim Kostin. Solid, if unspectacular. Then came the eleventh hour of deadline day, where the Sharks pulled arguably the most shocking deal in recent memory: Tomas Hertl was sent off to Vegas. Outside of the obvious issue of sending one of their best players to their nemesis, the trade came with a litany of issues for the Sharks. The Sharks used their final salary retention spot on Hertl (the others were used on Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson), meaning the Sharks can no longer retain salary in a deal until the end of this season. Even after retaining salary, the Sharks still had to add in a pair of third-round picks as sweeteners. They could have prevented all of it by trading Hertl when he was a pending free agent a couple of years ago, and the fact they pulled the trigger after they signed him to a deal is a damning indictment of the Sharks’ front office.

In the offseason, the Sharks were realistic about where they were as a team. David Quinn was proven for the second time that his tactics simply do not work at the NHL level and was replaced in-house by rising assistant Ryan Warsofsky. They made a few moves like signing Tyler Toffoli and Alexander Wennberg to bolster a young core. They accepted cap dumps from other teams like Jake Walman, Cody Ceci, and the return of Barclay Goodrow. The real prizes, however, came during the draft, when the Sharks drafted Boston University forward and Hobey Baker Award winner Macklin Celebrini first overall. This man was going to be the face of their franchise, the cornerstone of their rebuilding effort. They also got top defensive prospect Sam Dickinson in the first round as well, adding to an impressive farm system. Finally, the Sharks pulled the trigger on a trade for Yaroslav Askarov, a top goaltending prospect whose path to the NHL was blocked when the Nashville Predators locked Juuse Saros into a long-term extension. The future was in place, and the expectations were that the Sharks would not be an easy out for anyone this time around.

Even those low expectations lasted all of one game. The Sharks coughed up a 4-1 lead to the St. Louis Blues and lost Celebrini to injury. Since then, it’s been similar to what last year’s Blackhawks looked like when Connor Bedard went down: lifeless, unwatchable, devoid of hope. Warsofsky has reportedly called out the team, saying their start was “embarrassing.” Askarov remains in the AHL, likely to protect him from a Swiss cheese defense that allows opposing teams to pepper the goaltenders with shots. Offensively, the only reliable sources have been Toffoli, Mikael Granlund, and William Eklund. Celebrini’s injury has put his season on pause, while fellow top prospect Will Smith has been terrible to start, failing to put up a point in seven games. The only defenseman who has been consistent is 22-year-old Jack Thompson. Sure, Sharks fans can point out that pieces of a future core are emerging, but the old adage takes precedence: you are what your record says you are.

I understand that it might be unfair ripping into a team clearly in the deep throes of a rebuild. The Sharks had no expectations for the postseason and their play so far has only cemented that. That said, the important part of the word ‘rebuild’ is build for a reason. The point of a rebuild is to identify core pieces and reinforce them with talent gradually in the hopes of yearly improvement. Progress is not going to come overnight, but it at least has to be visible in some aspects. With a similar start to the season to last year’s disastrous campaign and the same problems flaring up once again, the Sharks are once again forced to take a deep look at their roster and figure out what’s going wrong. Their postseason drought is likely going to hit six years, and it is fair to assume fans are growing restless.

At some point, something has to give. The Sharks can not expect to keep the status quo when similar problems are yielding similar results. It’s one thing to have top talent, but it’s another to hope they develop and find a spot in an optimal lineup. Throwing everything and anything at the wall and hoping it sticks is not going to cut it anymore. The Sharks need to figure something out and find anything at all that makes this season worthwhile. Otherwise, ’embarassing’ might be an understatement by the end of the season.

Nerd Rage: Sharks on the Ocean Floor

Image Credit: Stan Szeto/USA Today Sports

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.