SAN JOSE — The Sharks were not predicted to be a playoff team this season. They weren’t supposed to be able to compete in a realigned division that was tougher than the one they were in the previous year when they finished last among eight teams.
Also, how could they overcome playing their first 12 games of a 56-game season on the road?
But on the morning of April 10, the Sharks, with an 18-17-4 record and 17 games to go, were basically in control of their own destiny. They were three points behind the Arizona Coyotes for fourth place in the West Division with two games in hand, and two points back of the St. Louis Blues with one game in hand.
They were riding high, having won five of six games.
Then, in a two-week stretch, it all slipped away.
After their 5-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings on April 9, the Sharks wouldn’t be victorious again until April 26 when they beat the Coyotes 6-4. They went 0-7-1 from April 10 to April 24, their longest losing streak in 15 years.
Before the Sharks played their first game with Arizona last week, they were six points out of a playoff spot with nine games left to play.
It was over.
“We thought that a lot of those games, most of those games,” Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro said of the eight-game losing streak earlier this week, “were on us and our preparation and our compete level.”
Monday, the Sharks (20-26-5) could mathematically be eliminated from playoff contention with a loss to the Colorado Avalanche in regulation time and a St. Louis victory when the Blues play the Anaheim Ducks.
But regardless of whether it becomes official Monday or not, the Sharks inevitably will miss the postseason in consecutive seasons for just the third time in their 30-year history.
Here are five reasons why it fell apart for the Sharks over a 14-day stretch last month.
SCORING DRIES UP: From the start of the season until April 9, a handful of Sharks players were having solid, if unspectacular, offensive seasons. Evander Kane led the way with 35 points in 39 games, a 0.90 points-per-game average, followed by Tomas Hertl (0.76) and Logan Couture (0.67). Brent Burns, Kevin Labanc, and Timo Meier all averaged 0.62 points per game.
But during the eight-game skid, Hertl was the only Sharks’ player to average more than half a point per game, as he had two goals and three assists in that time. Meier had four points in eight games. But Nikolai Knyzhov had just as many points, two, as Burns and Erik Karlsson. Joel Kellman also had two points, just as many as Kane. Couture and Labanc both had one point.
That’s not the way it’s supposed to work.
When the players who get paid to produce didn’t produce, the Sharks’ lack of scoring depth was exposed. Rudolfs Balcers and Ryan Donato each had two points in the skid, with Dylan Gambrell and Patrick Marleau each adding one.
Also, the power play was atrocious, going 1-for-21, including 0-for-16 over the final seven games of the losing streak.
Job No. 1 for the Sharks’ front office in the summer is to find a way to upgrade the team’s forward depth. Otherwise, the Sharks will be going down the same path next season.
MARTIN JONES COOLS OFF: Jones on April 5 was named the NHL’s second star of the week after he went 4-0-0 with a 1.71 goals-against average, .942 save percentage, and one shutout. But the good times wouldn’t last.
On April 10, against the Los Angeles Kings, Jones, starting on back-to-back nights after the Sharks traded Devan Dubnyk to Colorado earlier in the day, allowed four goals on 19 shots and was pulled in favor of rookie Josef Korenar.
Jones hasn’t won since. Starting with that April 10 game, Jones, with some shaky puck management and leaky defensive structure around him, has gone 0-5-1 with a .861 save percentage, second-worst in the NHL for all goalies who played at least four games in that time.
CALIFORNIA DREAM ENDS: The Sharks went into their April 10 game with Los Angeles with a combined record of 10-2-1 against the Kings and Ducks. After their game with seventh-place L.A., the Sharks would play the eighth-place Ducks in an ensuing two-game series at home – a golden opportunity to put points in the bank before their schedule got tougher.
But it was a disaster.
The Sharks never held a lead throughout the three games. Instead of rebounding from a 4-2 loss to the Kings on April 10, the Sharks fell behind the Ducks by three goals in both games. Goalie Anthony Stolarz stopped 73 of 74 shots in the two-game series, which Anaheim swept with 4-0 and 4-1 wins. Stolarz is 0-2-0 since with an .867 save percentage.
Also, defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic, whose improved play in recent weeks has earned kudos from Bob Boughner, missed all three games with an injury.
If the Sharks had won those three games, and nothing else changed after that, they would have entered Sunday two points back of the Blues.
SCHEDULE GETS TOUGH: Despite being swept by the Ducks, the Sharks were still just four points back of fourth place on the morning of April 16 when they began a road trip with two games each against Minnesota and Vegas.
The Sharks held leads in all four games, including a 2-0 advantage over the Golden Knights in the second period on April 19 when Marleau passed Gordie Howe to become the NHL’s all-time leader in games played. But the Sharks managed just one point in that game as they lost in a shootout, and were blanked in the three other games.
“The difference is very small, so when there’s little things that are off, the execution’s not there, sometimes it looks a lot worse than the difference between teams are,” Burns said April 17 after a 5-2 loss to Minnesota. “Our team, we have to play an extremely detailed, hard-working game every game to be in them and win those games and if it’s a little bit off, it’s going to look and feel like that.”
ST. LOUIS GETS HOT: Remarkably, on the morning of April 24, the Sharks were still just four points back of the fourth-place Coyotes and three back of the fifth-place Blues. But St. Louis, which had two games in hand on the Sharks, was about to get hot.
Thought to have a difficult schedule coming home, the Blues beat the Colorado Avalanche twice on April 24 and 26 and followed that up with a 2-0-1 record in three games against the Wild to basically lock up the fourth and final playoff spot in the West Division.
The Sharks’ 6-3 loss to Minnesota on April 24 left them six points out of a playoff spot, a gap too big to overcome considering the shortcomings of their roster.
On the morning of April 26, before his team’s game against Arizona, Boughner announced the team was going to use their remaining games to give younger players opportunities to evaluate what needs they have going into offseason.
“There’s going to be some games here where there are probably going to be some young guys getting in,” Boughner said, “and that’s the position we put ourselves in.”
