The San Jose Sharks feel they’ve taken some strides this season and believe their record doesn’t totally reflect how much improvement they’ve made.
But on some nights recently, that improvement hasn’t always been easy to see.
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While the Sharks began January with impressive home wins over the potentially playoff-bound Tampa Bay Lightning and New Jersey Devils, they ended it by winning just two of their last 12 games, with a handful of those losses being blowouts, or just devastating.
Thursday night, a tie game after the first period turned one-sided in a hurry, as the Seattle Kraken scored four goals in less than eight minutes and cruised to a 6-2 win at Climate Pledge Arena.
The Sharks’ loss was their seventh in eight games. In those seven losses, they allowed a combined 40 goals.
“Not good. Our record shows it,” said Sharks defenseman Henry Thrun, summing up San Jose’s 4-10-0 month of January and 15-33-6 season. “Both on a personal and a team level, there needs to be a higher standard, and right now we’re not meeting it.
“So we’ve got to change something up, or we’ve got to press a little harder, or we’ve got to work it out, because it hasn’t been good.”
Before the Sharks host the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday to open their February, here are five takeaways from their January.
TIDAL WAVES OF GOALS: The Sharks gave up a respectable 3.07 goals per game in November, but that number has gone in the wrong direction in the last two months.
The Sharks gave up 3.85 goals per game in December, and after Thursday’s one-sided affair, they allowed an average of 4.00 goals in 14 January games, the most in the NHL.
The Sharks’ loss to Seattle marked the sixth time in the last seven games that they have given up three goals or more in a single period. To put that into more context, in January, 20 of the 32 teams managed to hold opposing teams, on average, to under three goals per game.
When it goes south for the Sharks, it goes south in a hurry. Turnovers, defensive zone play, a lack of physicality at times, and a penalty kill that ranked 31st in the NHL in January at 65.5% all played a part in San Jose’s ugly goals-against totals.
“Unfortunately, this year, it’s felt like we almost blink and all of a sudden we’re kind of scrapping to even be in the game anymore,” Thrun said. “I don’t point it to any moment in particular. It seems that there’s a flurry of chances and shots, and all of a sudden, we’re down two or three goals, and it’s tough for any team in this league to come back against that.
“Feels like it’s happened too much this year. There’s no excuse for it. Needs to be an answer at some point.”
GROWTH FROM THE KIDS: Teenagers Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith might start to hit a wall once the calendar turns to March. But for now, neither player appears to have plateaued, as Celebrini had 10 points in 14 games in January and Smith had nine. Mikael Granlund led the Sharks with 11 points and William Eklund had nine.
The confidence shown by Smith this month has to be encouraging to the Sharks, as he went through some challenging times in the first half of the season. He’s making better, sounder plays with the puck, and if he continues to improve, he could find himself on the NHL’s All-Rookie team at the end of the season.
Celebrini, meanwhile, has been just as good as advertised, if not better.
“Not to put too much pressure on him, but he’s had a heck of a first half,” Sharks general manager Mike Grier said earlier this week. “He’s driving play, pushing his teammates, driving practice. The competitiveness is off the charts and for an 18-year-old kid the way he’s defending at the puck and winning puck battles, it’s been super impressive to watch.”
BAY EXPOSURE: The Sharks are being hit with a litany of injuries right now, with Alexander Wennberg (upper body) becoming the latest forward to become unavailable as he missed Thursday’s game.
Five other Sharks players are injured reserve, and while that would adversely affect most NHL teams, it really hurts the Sharks, who have had some of their organizational weaknesses exposed. Grier and his staff have taken notice.
ASKAROV’S MONTH: Sharks rookie goalie Yaroslav Askarov played in eight games in January, and at times, he was brilliant, particularly against Tampa Bay, New Jersey, and Pittsburgh. Other nights, though, he was just OK, as his save percentage and goals saved above expected numbers dipped.
Certainly the play of the skaters in front of him contributed to that inconsistency, but it would not be the worst thing if Askarov, 22, went back to the Barracuda, got more practices, and continued to refine his game. If the Sharks trade Vitek Vanecek or Alexandar Georgiev before the March 7 deadline, then Askarov can be brought back and allowed to finish with the Sharks.
LANGUISHING IN LAST: When training camp began in September, the revamped Sharks did not expect to once again be in last place in the NHL’s overall standings at this point of the regular season. But with 28 games to go, that’s where they are.
Now it seems like it’s a matter of whether the Sharks or the Chicago Blackhawks will finish at the bottom of the 32-team league, therefore having the best odds to win the NHL draft lottery this spring.
The Blackhawks fired a salvo, so to speak, last when they sent winger Taylor Hall to Carolina as part of a blockbuster three-team trade that also saw star winger Mikko Rantanen go from Colorado to the Hurricanes and forwards Martin Necas and Jack Drury join the Avalanche.
While Hall had been playing on the Blackhawks’ fourth line recently, he was still their fifth-leading scorer with 24 points in 46 games. Hall’s best days are behind him, but it’s probably fair to say the Blackhawks were still better with him than without him.
The Sharks, meanwhile, are now 5-18-1 since trading Mackenzie Blackwood to the Avalanche on Dec. 9. At the time of the trade, the Sharks were 10-15-5.
There’s more to it than that, of course. But regardless of how the Sharks got to this point, they’re here, and it’s up to them to find a way out of this mess.
