The San Jose Sharks haven’t just been winless through 11 games this season, they’ve, generally speaking, been an unmitigated disaster on the ice. Last night’s 10-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins marked back-to-back games in which the team has surrendered 10 goals, while also marking just the second time this season that the team scored more than a single goal in a game. According to Sportsnet Stats, no team has surrendered 10 goals in back-to-back games since 1965.
While the Sharks taking up a place in the NHL’s basement was entirely expected, what hasn’t been expected is just how bad the team has looked in each game this season. The Sharks have scored 12 goals this season, just one more goal than Auston Matthews alone. The team has surrendered 55 goals, which averages out to five per game and is a full eight goals higher than the next-worst team.
All in all, the Sharks’ performances this season have naturally led to questions over head coach David Quinn’s job status. San Jose Hockey Now’s Sheng Peng asked Quinn about his job security after last night’s loss, to which Quinn responded:
I guess it’s an obvious question, but if you’ve been around long, I mean, I don’t think about that for two seconds. I’ve got a job to do.
Veteran Sharks forward Nico Sturm was asked about coaching as well, and he gave this response:
It’s not about the coaches. We lose 10-1, what are the coaches [going to do]? The coaches aren’t out there and playing. It’s far too easy to play against us right now, and that’s certainly not the coach’s fault. It’s up to us as players and we’re not anywhere near where we need to be right now.
Those quotes, which come via the Mercury News’ Curtis Pashelka, indicate that this isn’t a situation where there is discord and tension between coaches and players, the kind of tension that often causes these types of lopsided losses. Instead, the Sharks’ struggles could very well be more of a reflection of the caliber of roster Quinn is working with.
That being said, Peng wrote on X last night regarding Quinn’s job status that the team will “need to show real improvement, and relatively soon.” He added that the improvement can come in the form of simply just “competing consistently & not getting embarrassed” and that the issue for Quinn’s job security may not be the fact that they are losing, but “how they’re losing.”
For Quinn to be fired so early in the season would be something of a surprise, even with how poorly the Sharks have been playing.
Quinn was GM Mike Grier’s choice to lead the team through its rebuild, a former highly successful college coach with extensive experience managing young players and coaching in a rebuilding setting in the NHL.
General Managers typically do not get a large number of head coaches to cycle through before questions start coming in about their own job status, so firing Quinn would represent a significant setback for the Sharks’ front office, an admission that their first head coaching choice had backfired to a massive degree.
But what would also be a significant setback for the Sharks would be continuing this current stretch of downright horrific performances.
The team appears to have no issue stacking losses in order to secure the best chance at projected 2024 number-one pick and San Jose Jr. Sharks product Macklin Celebrini, just as clubs had no issue losing in order to have the best chance for Connor Bedard last season. But in most cases rebuilding clubs would like to pair those losses with genuine steps forward for some of its young players.
So far, that hasn’t happened for the Sharks. The team has lost all of its games and seen many key young players fail to take the steps forward at the NHL level that the organization was hoping for.
Just one player has registered more than five points on San Jose this season (veteran Tomáš Hertl) while valued youth talent such as William Eklund and Filip Zadina have struggled to put points together.
It’s an undeniably brutal situation for a rebuilding club to be in, and it’s a situation without many clear paths out unless the team as a whole significantly improves its play. If Quinn isn’t able to guide his team to more competitive hockey on a nightly basis, the questions on his job status, which began last night, could get quite a bit harder to ignore.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Old boys club is undefeated.
Mike Grier is 48.
Sharks showing how to do it when you suck. Why not lose as many as possible in the first half and guarantee to finish in bottom two then win a few in second half.
Not Quinn’s fault that SJ traded Meir and Karlsson for pieces that can’t help SJ for another few years
As I said on a previous thread, at very least we can be excited about the Sharks’ future. For a very long time, the prospect pool was abysmal, with a scouting staff that favoured big, slow players – often trading up to pick players that, in hindsight, never really made it in pro hockey.
Nowadays, we have Eklund, we have Will Smith and Kaspar Halttunen, we have Henry Thrun and, with hope, Big Mack himself.
But with the already weak team and high injury count on this roster… It’s an AHL team right now, if that.
Big Mac is total garbage. But… you missed big Shak, in whom there is hope. Unless you meant him and acknowledge Blackwood sucks… in which case, carry on. New team, new nicknames I guess.
Naw by Big Mack I meant Macklin Celebrini.
Blackwood is… Fine. Better than Kahkonen. But a backup in most other teams for sure.
He means hopefully they can add the consensus number 1 pick in next draft
There is nothing exciting about the Sharks future. Eklund has looked terrible at the NHL level. They are going nowhere for a long time without a #1 overall lottery win. Ducks are a team you could see it last year when results weren’t there. Not this Sharks team
Makes more sense!
In that case – you missed Shakir Makhamadullin who I think looks pretty good. Best D prospect for sure. Only decent part of the Timo return.
The most ridiculous thing that happened in that game was Pickles coming over to the bench after being denied a penalty shot opportunity. He says to Drew Remenda, who was between the benches, “See! Fastest D-man in the league.” We just talked about that the other day, about his dope statement after that Anaheim game a few years ago.
The good thing is, noone is watching. The stands at SAP are empty. 30 year fans like myself can’t bear to watch more than 15 minutes of peewee hockey. Why is that good news? Plattner deserves to feel it in his pocket for keeping DW into his dementia and then hiring Grier who has been a disaster. Not that he will notice with his $20b bank account i guess… Roll on 2030 when I can feel less embarrassed to wear my team apparel.
Trade Hertl asap. He is a class act and deserves so much better.
Greir has done pretty well with the sinking ship he was given. The team has drafted well, made smart signings in the context of rebuilding what was a nonexistent prospect pool maybe 3-4 years ago, and he seems to be doing exactly what he was hired to do – lose a lot and build draft capital. Plus he’s already moved an untradeable contract for a solid return.
I don’t see what else even the best GMs could have done with a team in this dire a situation. Nearly a decade of poor management and abysmal scouting really screwed this team in the long term.
I completely agree! The next step should be to get rid of Vlasic and Hoffman they are a complete waste of ice time.
It is going to be painful to watch this year and we have DW to thank for handcuffing the team but the end is not far off. It should be better every year. We just have to be patient.
@DevilShark – Aside from the first two home games and the recent matchup with the Pens, that attendance is rivaling WPG. Strange that it’s not being talked up in the media as it should. And you’re right about Plattner probably not feeling a dent in the old bank account. That’s mostly due to SAP business.
I’m banging my drum again but…
Trade EK earlier – we now have Bedard.
Get quality over quantity in the Meier trade – we now have Mercer or Holtz
Don’t resign Hertl – trade him for minimum 1st rounder + prospect at deadline
There are more terrible decisions but there’s 3 in answer to “I don’t see what else even the best GMs could have done” – heck, an average GM could have done those 3.
I don’t see where you get the idea we would have had Bedard. The Blackhawks won the draft lottery. Unless we traded Karlsson to Chicago for their first in a deep draft, the Sharks would not have ever been able to draft Bedard. Period. The team sucking more would not have made us magically win the NHL Powerball draw.
Well I guess you are right – maybe we don’t get Bedard. Maybe we get Carlsson or something. But at the time, there was no reason to hold him, and every reason to dump him. Who knows what happens out there in the multiverse. From a GM perspective, he was not playing for Bedard. Given you place and time, I think it was a huge mistake.
You’re forgetting something important: that trading Karlsson for ANY return was a very, very, very tough act. He has one of the highest cap hits in NHL history, just a handful of teams had the cap space to bother thinking about it, and those that did were understandably gunshy of dealing the house for an injury-prone defenseman in his thirties, and where if the bet failed they were still stuck with a huge cap hit (and a NMC) through to 2027.
(Heck, if they had offered Karlsson for *nothing* — just a straight salary dump for a minor leaguer or a low-round pick? Were there as many as a half-dozen teams with the cap space to do it? And how many teams wouldn’t have bothered at all? Whatever you think of Sharks’ management, I think they did pretty well to get what they got.)
What I know for sure is coming out the gate with “we will only retain $3m” will sure limit the suitors. So far all he’s done with that cap space he saved is get Mike Hoffman. Woop.
On what planet is retaining big salary on a long, expensive contract supposed to enable the Sharks to build a competitive team? Do you really want the team to be forced to let young talent walk because of dead cap?
When you are entering a 5 year rebuild? What competitive team. No young talent will walk – they will be at the salary cap floor with ELC’s. Be serious here – there is not one scenario where we are a cap ceiling team in the next 5 years. We all knew that 2 years ago – maybe except Grier and DW. Weaponising capspace includes tanking. Retention should be weaponised to acquire assets – that includes acquiring through the draft via tanking. You only get 3 slots – might as well use them for the biggest return.
I agree wholeheartedly on Grier being put in a tough spot. He inherited an absolute mess. However, I can’t give him credit for the Karlsson return. That credit belongs to boy wonder Dubas in Pitt, who thinks he’s smarter than everybody else. He was the only guy willing to put up that kind of return and I’m willing to bet he sought out Grier to do it
Either way, the numbers are horrid and anything pointing to progress might just save his bacon.
Well, if the Sharks want that #1 pick in the 2024 draft, why mess with success?
The whole problem with tanking for high draft picks is the players are well aware of it. Do you want them to go with the plan or mess it up by winning?
The problem is it doesn’t matter how far they are at the bottom they still have to go through the draft lottery. Bettman hates us so no way we will get the number one pick. Just like last year everyone knew before the lottery that Chicago would pick first.
Bill Mikkelson’s record for the worst plus-minus in NHL history has stood for 48 years. The 75 Washington winning percentage of .131 has stood for 48 years, as has their record (39) for the most road losses ever, and the most goals ever allowed in a single season (446).
The hockey writers Jeff Klein and Karl-Eric Reif opined in the late 1980s that those records would stand forever and ever.
The Sharks have to step their game down to beat 446 — they’re on track for 410 — but right now, SEVEN Sharks are on track to beat Mikkelson’s mark.
@Nha Trang – “Lucky 7”, unless they can’t win the lottery… Maybe Plattner can win some lost revenue back at Cache Creek Casino.
I’m a Rangers fan. I’ve felt the frustration you have already. I’m sorry for you having to live it now. I like the Sharks but this is going to be painful for a bit.