The San Jose Sharks begin a four-game road trip Sunday, and based on what we’ve seen so far this season, it could go one of two ways.
Either the Sharks will start to show that they can compete regularly away from home – which they didn’t do in October – and demonstrate some growth in that respect, or they’ll fall into some familiar habits and watch their record sink even further below .500.
Nothing will come easy.
Although San Jose (4-9-2) has games against the similarly rebuilding Philadelphia Flyers and inconsistent Pittsburgh Penguins, it also has games against the New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers, teams that appear capable of a deep playoff run.
The Sharks, who face the Devils on Sunday, are 1-5-1 away from home this season, outscored 32-18 along the way. If they want to show that things are different this season after going 8-29-4 on the road last year, now’s the time.
“We play some great teams, so it’ll be a really good test,” rookie center Macklin Celebrini said Thursday after the Sharks’ 5-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild.
“We’ve shown we can beat some really good teams, and we’re a really good team ourselves when we play like it. So, this will be a great test, especially on the road.”
Here are four questions as the Sharks’ second road trip gets underway:
WILL OFFENSE SHOW LIFE?: Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said he needed more from forward William Eklund after Thursday’s loss to Minnesota. If he meant offensively, it’s not an unreasonable expectation, considering Eklund has just one assist in his last four games.
Still, while Eklund is a key part of the Sharks, this shouldn’t be all on him. The Sharks have scored just nine goals in their last four games — eight at even strength and just one on the power play, which has not been as productive as it needs to be.
Tyler Toffoli also has just one assist in four games, and Barclay Goodrow, who is on the third line and has been on the second power-play unit, has no points in that span. The defense has added three points.
Celebrini had two goals Thursday, a sign that his legs and timing are returning after missing 12 games with a hip injury. He’ll play the first road games of his career, giving the Sharks some badly needed energy.
A matchup between Calder Trophy candidates Celebrini and Flyers forward Matvei Michkov on Monday would be entertaining.
MORE VETERAN SCRATCHES?: If the Sharks hit more adversity on this road trip, will some more established veterans, particularly on defense, become a healthy scratch?
For their game against the Devils on Sunday, the Sharks could get top-pair defenseman Jake Walman back. Walman missed Thursday’s game against the Minnesota Wild with an upper-body injury but practiced on Saturday.
Walman was a scratch for last Tuesday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, telling San Jose Hockey Now on Saturday that he missed a treatment session for his upper-body injury on a team day off, violating a club policy. Walman said he misunderstood the treatment plan.
Still, suppose Walman comes back and plays throughout the road trip, and the improving Jack Thompson gets into the lineup simultaneously. Who will come out (assuming the Sharks do not go with an 11-forward, seven-defensemen alignment)?
Warsofsky intimated earlier this week that there are few sacred cows.
“There’s definitely (been) conversations that we’ve had with guys that, it doesn’t matter if you’re a first-year guy or 12-year pro, if you struggle and you’re costing us hockey games, you’re going to come out of the lineup,” Warsofsky said, “but Jake’s was not that scenario.”
CAN THE SHARKS DEFEND?: The Sharks are going to face some incredibly talented forwards, including some future Hall of Famers, on this road trip: New Jersey’s Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier, Philadelphia’s Travis Konecny, the Rangers’ Artemi Panarin, and, of course, Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
Perhaps it’s an overgeneralization, but whether the Sharks can slow these players down will greatly affect their chances of gaining points on this road trip.
The Sharks have had mixed results against elite players so far this season. Certainly, they’ll want to improve upon what happened Thursday, when some questionable puck play led to some quality scoring chances for the Wild, with potential Hart Trophy candidate Kirill Kaprizov collecting three assists.
The Sharks will want to take away time and space from these players, forcing them to play in their end and not gifting them the puck in the neutral zone.
AN AWKWARD REUNION? Erik Karlsson requested a trade from the Sharks in 2023 because he wanted to be on a team closer to competing for a Stanley Cup. He was then dealt to the Penguins in August of last year.
But Pittsburgh, which hired David Quinn as an assistant coach on Mike Sullivan’s staff in June, two months after he was let go by the Sharks, missed the playoffs last season, and is off to a 6-8-2 start this year. It’s not out of the question that the Sharks will have the same number of wins as the Penguins when the two teams meet next Saturday.
Karlsson had a goal and an assist in the Penguins’4-2 win over the Washington Capitals and has 10 points in 16 games this season. Still, Karlsson’s work in the defensive zone has been iffy (sound familiar), and a shaky performance in a 5-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday drew the ire of Sullivan.
“I thought we had a lot of guys who played really hard and didn’t get rewarded for their efforts,” Sullivan said. “I think there were a few guys that didn’t live up to the expectations. It’s hard. We need everybody to bring it every night to have a chance to win.”
