The San Jose Sharks may not be adequate to make the NHL playoffs, or dangerous sufficient to have a great opportunity at drafting a generational kind of participant subsequent 12 months.
That appears to be – at the least on the floor – the place the Sharks are headed as they start the common season later this week with two video games in opposition to the Nashville Predators at O2 Enviornment in Prague.
“We don’t like speaking about there is no such thing as a probability,” Sharks heart Tomas Hertl mentioned final month. “You need to make it to the playoffs. I believe we’re sturdy sufficient. If all people performs their function we will step it up and be there.
“However on the identical time, it gained’t be straightforward.”
It doesn’t seem as if the Sharks try to tank – or at the least not as blatantly as another NHL organizations.
The Sharks gave Hertl an eight-year, $65.1 million contract extension in March, and bolstered the group’s depth up entrance this summer season with the additions of forwards like Oskar Lindblom and Luke Kunin. They nonetheless have tentpole gamers like Erik Karlsson, Logan Couture, and Timo Meier, and rookies like Thomas Bordeleau and William Eklund are exhibiting promise.
The goalie tandem of Kaapo Kahkonen and James Reimer additionally is likely to be a bit underrated.
Put all of it collectively and the Sharks probably gained’t be on the backside of the NHL standings the place groups just like the rebuilding Chicago Blackhawks, Arizona Coyotes, and Montreal Canadiens are anticipated to reside.
The groups with the worst information may have the perfect probability of successful the 2023 draft lottery and choosing teenage wunderkind Connor Bedard, believed to be the NHL’s subsequent celebrity.
“We’re not going to ask a man who’s solely scored 5 targets in a season to attain 40 targets this 12 months,” Sharks coach David Quinn mentioned. “That is guys that may simply be a bit bit higher. If we will get that all through our lineup, there’s a distinction in being a group that's within the backside 5 of the league and offer you an opportunity to be within the high 10 of the league.”
“Going into the season, all people believes they’re going to have a chance to possibly shock some individuals,” mentioned NHL Community analyst Ken Daneyko, who had a 20-year NHL profession with the New Jersey Devils. “I don’t suppose anyone thinks the Sharks are going to make the playoffs, however that’s why you play the video games.”
Normal supervisor Mike Grier has been refreshingly practical about the place the Sharks are at proper now as a company. He desires to win, however for him, this season is extra about constructing a basis and placing the Sharks in a greater place for future success.
“Only for them to be aggressive and play laborious each evening and be good teammates, and I believe that’s the place all of it begins,” Grier mentioned final month about his expectations for the Sharks. “If we try this, I believe we’ll have some success on the ice and we’ll have one thing to construct on.”
One of many greatest explanation why Grier was chosen to interchange Doug Wilson because the Sharks’ common supervisor three months in the past was due to his dedication to constructing the precise tradition across the group. Only recently, he supplied an instance of what that meant.
With Czech authorities officers in September threatening to maintain Russian gamers overseas for this week’s World Collection video games, Grier took a unifying stance, saying, “We’re a group, so if they are saying some guys can’t go, both all of us go or nobody goes.”
“We stand with them, and we’re all collectively as one in right here.”
It was a response that resonated with the Sharks gamers.
“We’ve talked rather a lot about our tradition as a group and the way we need to be as a gaggle,” Sharks winger Matt Nieto mentioned. “I believe these first (few) days, we’re off to a superb begin with all of that.”
Nonetheless, scoring targets is anticipated to stay a significant problem for the Sharks, an issue solely exacerbated when Grier traded Brent Burns to the Carolina Hurricanes for ahead Steven Lorentz, goalie prospect Eetu Mäkiniemi and a conditional 2023 third-round draft decide.
Burns led the Sharks in scoring during the last 11 seasons and was twelfth amongst all NHL defensemen final season with 54 factors. He performed extra minutes than some other skater within the common season as he and heart Hertl had been the one Sharks gamers to decorate for all 82 video games.
Karlsson, who led all NHL defensemen with 585 factors via the 2010s, must do his half, however the Sharks will want all people to assist eat these minutes, together with newcomers Matt Benning and for now, Scott Harrington. Markus Nutivaara, signed as a free agent within the offseason, is out with a lower-body damage.
“Whenever you lose large personalities and folks which have been in a single group for a very long time, you’re going to really feel such as you missed that particular person and there’s a void,” Couture mentioned. “However I really feel like guys that we now have in listed here are going to step up and take these minutes.”
The Sharks play Eisbären Berlin in an exhibition recreation Tuesday at Mercedes-Benz Enviornment, then start the common season with video games in opposition to the Nashville Predators on Friday and Saturday in Prague.
“You all the time need to make the playoffs however I don’t have something agency in my head to say what a profitable season is,” Grier mentioned. “I simply need to see progress. I need to see the gamers getting higher, the gamers growing and I need to see the tradition within the room coming round and being the way in which that (Quinn) and I would really like it to be.”