SAN JOSE - Ryan Warsofsky doesn’t sound like a coach waiting around for the Sharks to figure it out on their own.
After a 5-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Saturday dropped San Jose to 7-7-1, Warsofsky made it plain: he still wants more buy-in from his group, and he wants it now. Fifteen games into the season, he said the Sharks still haven’t put together a full 60-minute effort.
“That’s probably the most frustrating thing,” Warsofsky said, referring to the lack of buy-in. “We’re 15 games into it, and we probably still haven’t put (together) a complete game. Maybe (the season-opening win over the Florida Panthers), but it was so long ago, we’re still off in our game.
“We’ve got to find it quickly.”
The Sharks were supposed to know exactly what was coming from the Senators. Instead, they were outworked and outcompeted in front of their home crowd, and Warsofsky didn’t try to soften that reality.
“It’s not good enough, right? So we’ve got to go back and look at everything, look at it all,” he said, “and start getting to work (Sunday).”
The details from Saturday backed up the frustration. San Jose managed only 13 shots on net during 5-on-5 play in the first 40 minutes and finished the night outshot 35-23. It was the seventh straight game in which the Sharks gave up more shots than they generated.
That kind of night has become a pattern against fast, physical teams like Ottawa. The Sharks have struggled to cleanly exit their own zone, even with that area being a repeated focus in practice. The result has been a chain reaction at both ends of the ice, with San Jose spending too much time defending and not nearly enough time creating.
The underlying numbers are rough. Per Natural Stat Trick, the Sharks have allowed an NHL-worst 172 high-danger chances through 15 games, about 11.4 per game. They’ve created only 97, third-fewest in the league as of Saturday, or 6.5 per game.
That’s a sharp drop from last season, when over 82 games they allowed 9.5 high-danger chances per game and generated about nine.
“That’s a little bit (of) everything,” Sharks winger Barclay Goodrow said. “If we’re not breaking out pucks well, we’re giving up lots of shots, and then in the (offensive) zone, we’re not getting enough pucks to the net. We don’t have the shooting mindset.”
The Sharks’ 7-7-1 record also means they’ve reached the same point total they had after 15 games last season, despite all the offseason turnover. That’s not the kind of pace that matches what players have been saying about their goals. They’ve talked openly about making the playoffs, but a .500 points percentage won’t get them there.
Kiefer Sherwood said the team can’t keep waiting for a run to magically show up later.
“We can’t just keep going back and forth here and expect to go on a run later on,” Sherwood said. “We’ve got to have some urgency now, and we’ve got to really focus on our identity and how we want to play each and every night.”
Warsofsky was also asked about the team’s lack of energy and whether a player such as Ryan Reaves is missed in that area. His answer put the responsibility squarely on the room.
“It’s got to come from within. Every team changes throughout the year, and after seasons and through the offseason, we’ve added some pieces.
“I know it takes time to kind of find your role and get comfortable, but look, we’re 15 games in; it’s time to get comfortable.”
There are also lineup issues making the climb harder. Macklin Celebrini was held without a point for the third time in the last five games, another sign the Sharks need more scoring beyond the top end of the roster. Alexander Wennberg and Igor Chernyshov remain out long-term with upper-body injuries, and San Jose is 1-3-0 since Chernyshov was hurt blocking a shot in the Oct. 22 game in Ottawa.
The only win in that stretch came Thursday against the last-place Vancouver Canucks, and even that required three third-period goals.
Now the Sharks have to survive until Wennberg and Chernyshov return, which could be in a few weeks. In the meantime, the schedule doesn’t ease up. Monday starts another tough week, with Calgary next before a road trip that includes Los Angeles, Minnesota and Dallas.
For Warsofsky, the fix has to go beyond special teams and goaltending. The Sharks need more at 5-on-5, and they need it fast.
“Sometimes the best tool a coach has is to take someone out, take away ice time,” Warsofsky said. “So we’ll look at everything.”
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