The San Jose Sharks last season in the playoffs went deep into the waters of the NHL Playoffs. The Sharks upended the Vegas Golden Knights in a very tough first round match up that went the distance. Many experts had Vegas as a Stanley Cup finalist. Then in round two of the NHL playoffs, the Sharks showed a very young talented team in Colorado what it’s like to skate with a team of veterans. Sharks were ousted in six games versus the Blues in the Western conference finals. Could Doug Wilson, the Sharks GM, keep this veteran team intact to make another run at it the following season? With the NHL salary cap to deal with, the Sharks as a whole were in trouble. They could not keep everyone. They had choices to make. The league brought a bigger boat to the ice rink or the bad decisions came back to haunt San Jose.  San Jose were the team now Shark bitten.

Before the season In free agency, the Sharks let many of their goal scorers sign with other teams. San Jose were known last year as a team that can score a ton of points. Sharks felt like they could let a fan favorite, Joe Pavelski, go. They did not resign Gustav Nyquist or Joonas Donskoi. That’s 58 goals the Sharks let go from their total offense a season ago. Which comes out to 1/5 of the scoring from the 2018-19 team. They were hoping the young guys would step up. The pressure mounted for the core they kept intact to contribute every night. To pull the slack of the few lines that were pretty much non existent this season. The young guys failed. Logan Couture has been dealing with injuries. Tomas Hertl, Evander Kane and Timo Meier could not take the team on their backs. As the Sharks fire power has been very limited on what they can do this season.

JOE PAVELSKI                        GUTAV NYQUIST                         JOONAS DONSKOI

The Sharks put all their money in the Erik Karlsson basket. A stud defender most of his career. A defender though that will take a big chunk out of the salary cap to keep. Karlsson’s biggest problem is staying healthy. This year he’s been ruled out the rest of the year with a thumb injury. In 2017 they gave up a lot to pry Karlsson away from the Senators. Which they gave Ottawa the 2017 first rounder Josh Norris in that deal. Plus Karlsson’s big contract meant the Sharks could not bring back any of those goal scorers they let go.

The San Jose Sharks’ 2019-20 season will go down as one of their worst seasons in 15 years. The biggest problem they had last season when the playoffs started was their goal tending. Martin Jones shined in the playoffs last season as the high octane Sharks offense were able to put the puck in the net with ease. This season Jones has been a train wreck. Two long streaks of ten games Martin Jones has gone dormant. Save percentage has hit rock bottom during these tough times in the net for San Jose. Plus Jones is another bad contract on the books. His yearly hit on the cap is about 5.7 million and he has 4 years after this season to go. Martin Jones came from Boston for another first round pick in 2016 this team gave up.

The San Jose Sharks from out of the gate this season dug themselves a huge hole. This prompted them to fire their head coach, Peter DeBoer. DeBoer got a job with the Vegas Golden Knights.The Sharks jumped on the Golden Knights  X head coach Bob Boughner in what the NHL season has been nothing but musical chairs with coaches. The Sharks then had to change their team philosophy with the coaching change.   Sharks improved under Boughner but found themselves back in their own rut again. With several teams to leap frog to get into the playoffs with the season dwindling quickly. The Sharks will need the playoff magic they had last season and more to get back into the thick of things. Perhaps a bus crash of a few teams to help their cause.

San Jose Sharks have been around for 27 seasons. The Sharks have made the playoffs 21 times out of those 28 years in the NHL. They will definitely miss the playoffs this season. The Sharks would only have missed seven seasons of playoff hockey. No championships in 21 NHL times in the postseason. They have made it to the Stanley Cup finals one time losing to Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016. This franchise has done a lot of good things since they first started to get to the playoffs that often. The Sharks could be facing some bad years ahead of them with bad contracts on the books. The youth not responding. Plus they still have a flux of veteran players in the mix. Might be best to hit the reset button and blow it all up, even the beard of Joe Thornton.