Mike Grier doesn’t have many comfortable choices after the Sharks’ latest collapse.
San Jose’s 7-2 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday night didn’t just extend a rough patch. It raised the bigger question hanging over the organization: if the growth Grier said he wanted in September isn’t showing up, how aggressive does he get in trying to fix it?
The Sharks looked out of sync from the opening minutes at Crypto.com Arena. They fell behind 1-0 on a breakaway goal before some fans had even settled in, then trailed 3-0 by the end of the first period. By the time the final horn sounded, the game had turned into another ugly snapshot of where this team is right now.
On several Kings goals, including one by Erik Haula midway through the second period, San Jose looked disorganized defensively. The Sharks did generate 11 high-danger chances at 5-on-5, according to Natural Stat Trick, but they gave up 12, including seven in the first period.
That came after the Sharks had briefly seemed to steady themselves in a 2-1 regulation loss to the rebuilding Calgary Flames on Monday. Instead, they’ve now allowed the first goal in seven straight games and lost five of them.
Without the three-goal third period that rescued them in a 3-2 win over the last-place Vancouver Canucks on Oct. 29, the Sharks could be carrying a six-game losing streak into a tough road swing against Minnesota on Friday and Dallas on Saturday.
After Wednesday’s loss, the players tried to address things among themselves in the visiting locker room. Kiefer Sherwood was blunt about the disconnect.
“We’re not connected right now,” Sharks winger Kiefer Sherwood said. “There’s intangibles, talking and helping each other out sometimes. You can see that we’re not on the same page, whether it’s going back for a puck, or breakouts to be made, or it’s on the wall.
“Then offensively, I don’t know, we’re going to have to really look ourselves in the mirror here and get desperate, get hungry, and fix our mindset going into the next two on this road trip.”
That leaves Grier weighing three paths.
The least attractive would be a coaching change, especially so soon after giving head coach Ryan Warsofsky a multi-year contract extension. Firing Warsofsky, or moving on from one of his assistants, would be a sharp pivot after that vote of confidence.
Sherwood, without being asked, pushed back on the idea that the coaching staff is the problem. He said the players need to toughen up and bring a harder edge.
Warsofsky, for his part, didn’t dodge responsibility.
“Our guys understand how we need to play,” Warsofsky said. “We show it daily. But I’ve got to look in the mirror myself, and when we’re in these types of situations, the things that I can do differently, we’ll look at it, and we’ll go from there.”
A trade is another possibility, and the Simon Edvinsson chatter isn’t fading away. On the DFO Insider podcast published Wednesday, David Pagnotta said the Detroit Red Wings would need more than center Michael Misa to move the 24-year-old top-pair defenseman. Pagnotta said he believes the Sharks would be comfortable with a Misa-for-Edvinsson deal, but that Detroit wants more.
It would be a massive swing. Misa, 19, projects as a top-six center for years. Edvinsson would fill a clear need for San Jose and fit the timeline of the team’s push toward contention, but he’s also a restricted free agent who will need a new contract, and it won’t come cheap.
The final option is to stay the course and let the group sort itself out. There’s a case for patience, too.
The Sharks haven’t looked the same since center Alexander Wennberg and winger Igor Chernyshov went down with upper-body injuries. Wennberg was hurt on Oct. 19, and Chernyshov three days later.
Since then, San Jose has gone 1-5 and been outscored 24-11.
Chernyshov is still a ways away, but Wennberg could come off injured reserve soon. That raises the question of whether Grier should wait until the roster is whole again before making any major move, especially since he’s seen this group together for less than three weeks.
For now, the Sharks sit at 7-9-1 with Minnesota and Dallas next on the schedule, and both opponents are sitting near the top of the Western Conference. San Jose doesn’t have to beat those teams, but it does need to look like it belongs on the ice with them. Wednesday night was the opposite.
As Grier said in September: “From my end, it’s just to continually see the growth in the group and individuals and make sure we’re playing a better brand of hockey and winning hockey,” Grier said in September. “As long as it’s heading in the right direction, we’ll be OK.”
In Other News...
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The Sharks road trip opener in Los Angeles was supposed to offer a cleaner read on where the rebuild stands, but the first period made the night feel familiar in the worst way. San Jose fell 7-2 to the Kings at Crypto.com Arena, with the home side piling up three goals before the opening frame was over and adding two more in the second while Adrian Kempe, Quinton Byfield and Erik Haula all found the net.
There were a couple of small bright spots buried in the loss, with Macklin Celebrini and Ivar Stenberg scoring for San Jose and Yaroslav Askarov stopping 20 shots in goal. Eric Pohlkamp also made his NHL debut, which gave the Sharks at least one fresh look on a night when the bigger question was whether the team is making enough progress to keep pace when the game turns fast and the margin disappears early. [Read more 🡒]
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The early-season stumble has started to put real heat on Ryan Warsofsky, with the Sharks dropping four of their last five and managing only five goals in that stretch. For a young team still trying to find its footing, the results alone are bad enough, but the bigger concern is how quickly the conversation has shifted from growing pains to whether the group is fully aligned with its coach.
There is also a visible disconnect in how the problem is being described inside the room. Warsofsky has pointed to the teams buy-in, while Macklin Celebrini has framed it more as an issue of energy and connection, and the injuries to Alexander Wennberg and Igor Chernyshov have only made it harder to run the kind of defensive system the staff wants. With the Sharks already searching for traction, the next few games figure to say a lot about whether this is a temporary dip or a deeper concern. [Read more 🡒]
Sharks Showed A Fragility In LA Fans Can't Ignore
The Sharks had a rough night at Crypto.com Arena, where the Kings rolled to a 7-2 win and exposed just how vulnerable San Jose can look when the game gets away from them early. Los Angeles piled up goals throughout the first two periods, with Kempe scoring twice as the Kings kept pressing and the Sharks struggled to find any sustained answer.
Macklin Celebrini and Ivar Stenberg provided the only San Jose offense, but the bigger concern was how quickly the matchup tilted and how little room the Sharks left themselves to recover. For a team still trying to establish any kind of consistency, a result like this is the kind of reminder that the margin for error remains thin, especially against a division rival that can punish mistakes in bunches. [Read more 🡒]