San Jose Sharks heart Nico Sturm drank out of the Stanley Cup in June. The subsequent month, in what needed to be one other unforgettable day, Sturm took the Cup to his hometown of Augsburg, Germany, the place he shared it with followers, household, and associates.
Sturm couldn’t presumably be any additional faraway from that second than he's proper now, as he and the remainder of the Sharks wakened Wednesday because the NHL’s last-place group.
“It sucks,” Sturm mentioned Tuesday evening after the Sharks’ 5-2 loss to the New York Islanders, which dropped their report to 0-5-0. “I haven’t been on a shedding group, I believe, since my first yr in juniors. It’s not likely one thing I’m used to.
“I don’t prefer it.”
5 video games into the NHL season and the Sharks have at occasions seemed fully misplaced. They don’t have an identification, not less than not one they play to on a constant foundation. They don’t know learn how to play with a lead, their high gamers aren’t scoring they usually usually can’t afford to play from behind.
As staggering as it's that the Sharks have already allowed 12 second-period targets and have misplaced leads in 4 of the 5 video games they’ve performed, it’s equally alarming that they've but to attain a objective within the third interval.
As soon as they have been down 3-2 late within the second interval Tuesday after Islanders winger Oliver Wahlstrom scored the primary of his two, it felt prefer it was near over. After Wahlstrom scored once more 5:24 into the third interval, there was subsequent to no likelihood the Sharks have been going to return again.
While you’ve scored eight occasions in 5 video games, how can it really feel any totally different?
“It’s going to take quite a lot of work bodily and mentally to get out of the state of affairs we’re in,” mentioned Sharks coach David Quinn, who has but to see his group have a third-period lead. “It’s irritating.”
Few folks, if any, anticipated the Sharks to be playoff contenders this season. Common supervisor Mike Grier was sincere in regards to the path when he was employed in July, and mentioned the group was probably going to wish to take a step again earlier than it may well go ahead.
That meant being within the NHL draft lottery for not less than another season.
Nonetheless, it’s a shock to see the Sharks begin off this poorly.
Grier traded Brent Burns however made what appeared like constructive strikes to assist his core gamers with the acquisition of some dependable veterans, like Sturm. Because it stands proper now, although, the Sharks can have about pretty much as good an opportunity as any group to win the No. 1 total choose for the 2023 NHL Draft and choose wunderkind Connor Bedard.
That’s clearly not on the minds of any Sharks gamers proper now, as they get set to face the New York Rangers on Thursday in David Quinn’s return to Madison Sq. Backyard. Quinn coached the Rangers from 2018 to 2021.
“We’ve obtained to speed up the educational course of, that’s for positive. As a result of we’ve obtained a troublesome sport on Thursday evening,” Quinn mentioned. “In some unspecified time in the future in time, shedding’s obtained to harm sufficient to the purpose the place you’re going to speed up the educational course of, and that’s what we've to do.”
Quinn was requested if shedding hurts sufficient proper now for the Sharks.
“I believe so,” he mentioned. “However we’ll discover out.”
Burns’ absence was all the time going to go away an enormous void, and everybody proper now's discovering how massive that gap is.
Erik Karlsson and Mario Ferraro have three factors every this season however the Sharks haven’t acquired a objective from their top-nine ahead group within the final three video games. After going 0-for-3 on the facility play Tuesday, San Jose is now 1-for-19 with the person benefit this season.
If the Sharks’ high 5 or 6 ability gamers aren’t scoring, the fallback choices are restricted. The fourth line of Sturm, Evgeny Svechnikov, and Jonah Gadjovich had extra high-danger scoring probabilities than every other Sharks line Tuesday, per Pure Stat Trick, and accounted for each of San Jose’s targets.
That just about says all of it.
“We’re discovering methods to lose,” Sharks winger Timo Meier mentioned Tuesday. “(The Islanders) are a great group, however I assumed tonight we beat ourselves once more, identical to the final sport (towards Chicago). It’s early within the season, however that may’t occur, so it’s time for us to determine this out.”
After Thursday, the Sharks shut their highway journey with video games towards New Jersey on Saturday and Philadelphia on Sunday. Proper now, incremental enhancements aren’t sufficient.
“We'd like a win,” Quinn mentioned. “We have to discover a method to get a win. This will put on on you in a rush and you may see it in our guys’ faces.”
“We don’t have quite a lot of time,” Sturm mentioned. “The opening’s getting deeper and deeper and sooner or later, it’s simply going be too late already.”