Story by
Sharks Insight: Does San Jose Need Different Voice Besides Warsofsky?
- Story by
- Sharks Insight: Does San Jose Need Different Voice Besides Warsofsky?
Sharks Insight: Does San Jose Need Different Voice Besides Warsofsky?
LOS ANGELES — Have the San Jose Sharks checked out on Ryan Warsofsky?
Last Saturday, in a flatfooted 5-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators, it looked like yes. On Monday, in a genuinely well-played 2-1 loss to the Calgary Flames, it looked like no. On Wednesday, in an inexplicable 7-2 loss to the Los Angeles Kings, it looked like yes.
Advertisement
But either way, the San Jose Sharks need to respond on Friday and Saturday, in a tough back-to-back against Stanley Cup contenders, the Minnesota Wild and Dallas Stars.
And it's fair to judge Warsofsky's future on how they respond.
It's not to say that the Sharks need to peel off a 10-game winning streak. The loss to Los Angeles does mean San Jose has dropped five of their last six.
But San Jose needs to play hard and connected, two things that an NHL team should be able to accomplish, and which they failed to do against Los Angeles.
The team held a players-only meeting after the blowout at Crypto.com Arena.
Advertisement
Afterwards, Kiefer Sherwood , perhaps aware of the talk hanging around Warsofsky, said unprompted, "It's not on the coaches right now."
Captain Macklin Celebrini pointed out the obvious, "We're the ones on the ice."
Disconnected goals like Adrian Kempe 's first two and Erik Haula 's stroll down the slot are not, in my opinion, coaching mistakes.
That's just bad hockey from a team that's too in its head.
But of course, it is on the coaching staff to help guide the team out of their mental shadows.
Look, it's a game of mistakes. Kempe gets breakaway goal 1:23 in. No big deal, you're just down a goal.
Advertisement
It's how you respond to mistakes.
"We're not winning our battles. We're not being hard to play against. We're not making plays," Sherwood said.
Per Stathletes, the Kings had four high-danger chances at 5-on-5, the Sharks zero. That tracks. Stathletes, by the way, has a much different measure for high-danger chances than public models: They're shot attempts with a higher than 20 percent Expected Goals each.
The old adage in hockey is you can't fire 23 players though. So fair or not, Warsofsky will bear the brunt, if San Jose can't commit to playing the right way soon.
Advertisement
There's a larger discussion for another day: From my vantage point, it feels like a younger San Jose Sharks squad wants to run and gun, like a lot of them did at lower levels. But this team isn't the Edmonton Oilers, they don't have Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard and Zach Hyman. Truth is, they have world-class Celebrini and a lot of very talented but very unproven NHL players.
That's not excluding Sharks veterans from this discussion, but for this team to reach its ceiling, they're relying on their youth to take the next step.
So bigger picture, Warsofsky trying to get his team to play more conservatively is absolutely the smartest thing to do right now, because as we've seen, if Celebrini isn't going, the Sharks don't have lots of firepower quite yet. At the moment, they have no B-game when their A-game in Celebrini is slumping. They will score, but they will also get eviscerated, I believe, with this roster in its current form, if they get into a game of trading chances.
I'm not blaming the kids either: Warsofsky was brought in as a development coach in part, so ultimately, it's on him to get the youth (any everybody else) on board. And there is an argument, sometimes you just do need a different voice in the room.
Advertisement
It's a classic NHL story, really, young-and-talented team needs to learn to play the right way before they attain genuine team success.
Will the Sharks learn before it's too late for Warsofsky?
Related Headlines
