LOS ANGELES — Ryan Warsofsky knew this was never going to be easy.
For all the excitement that prized rookies Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith brought this summer, the reality was that Warsofsky was taking over a San Jose Sharks club that was dead last a year ago; the only team in the league that didn’t break the 20-win or 50-point barriers. You’ve got to be pretty bad to fail to achieve either over an 82-game schedule, but the Sharks went beyond pretty bad. Awful often.
With several other additions that general manager Mike Grier made in the offseason, the Sharks roster might look a lot different, but the early weeks of 2024-25 look all too familiar. It took them until the 12th game of last season to find their first win. Another O-for-October is in the works after a 3-2 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday night.
Foegele scores again. Absolute domination by LA right now. #GoKingsGo 3, #TheFutureIsTeal 0 pic.twitter.com/Cm9Q3tHT4d
— TEAL TOWN USA – A San Jose Sharks Podcast (@TEALTOWNUSA) October 25, 2024
At 0-6-2, the Sharks aren’t quite the early-season embarrassment of a year ago when back-to-back shutouts and two other consecutive losses in which they were torched for 10 goals necessitated a team-wide wake-up lecture by Grier. But while there are new faces and a generally more competitive spirit, the fact is they’re not a great deal better.
The joy of June 13 when Warsofsky’s dream of running his own NHL bench was realized has given way to the struggle and pain of turning around a franchise that’s neck-deep in a multiyear rebuild. The long game is being played in San Jose, with Celebrini and Smith as central parts with an intriguing prospect pool that’s being built around them. If the remaining months are as lean as this one, the Sharks will be front and center in the James Hagens sweepstakes.
Warsofsky was part of last year’s disastrous beginning as an assistant to David Quinn. Now he’s running the show and although the scores have been closer for the most part, the tighter defeats have only heightened the frustration. That was apparent in the bowels of Crypto.com Arena when the 36-year-old coach was irritated by a terrible first period, a 3-0 deficit that the Sharks couldn’t overcome.
“It’s the National Hockey League,” Warsofsky said. “You work so hard as a kid to get to this point in your career and now we’re just going to say we’re in a tough spot and just shy away? This is life. You’re going to get punched in the face with some adversity. We got to push through.
“This is the best league in the world and if you don’t have joy in playing this game, then you’re in the wrong business and you’re on the wrong team. And we’ll weed those guys right out.”
An equally blunt Fabian Zetterlund offered, “This league is the best league in the world. If we’re not ready, it’s going to bite us in the ass. We just got to be ready.”
Thursday’s loss reacquainted the Sharks with infamy. As noted by the Associated Press, the 0-6-2 start paired with last year’s 0-10-1 beginning marked the first time an NHL team has opened consecutive seasons with eight defeats since the Boston Bruins did so in 1960-61 and 1961-62.
There was an ugly 8-3 loss in Winnipeg that they were never in. But since they let a three-goal lead get away in an opening night overtime loss to St. Louis, the Sharks have done enough right in games to keep most of them from getting out of hand. They’ve also done enough wrong that their popgun offense can’t overcome.
They’ve gone 16 periods without having a lead, the last one coming in Dallas where they took one of the top teams in the Western Conference to a shootout on Oct. 15.
If it isn’t a litany of penalties that derailed a strong opening 30 minutes Tuesday in Anaheim, it’s not matching the Kings’ skating and net play in the first period on Thursday.
“We need guys to step up,” Warsofsky said. “We need a lot of guys to step up. Be more consistent night after night and we’re just not getting that at all. A lot of passengers. And when one guy’s going, the next night he’s not going. We got to find some consistency in our game.”
The Sharks aren’t going to win games on talent alone. Even after adding useful veterans Tyler Toffoli, Jake Walman, Alex Wennberg and Cody Ceci to ice a more respectable lineup, this group needs everyone engaged and winning battles from the first minute to the 60th or more if necessary. They don’t need Klim Kostin to be Mikael Granlund — they just need him to bring the effort that Granlund does.
“Yeah, just wasn’t giving us much and that’s why he didn’t play,” Warsofsky said of his enigmatic power forward who played only 5:09, and not at all after the eight-minute mark of the second period.
The Sharks simply are not good enough to play well for half of a contest, or even two periods as they did Thursday when they made a push and drew seven Kings penalties. Granlund converted two of their six power plays for their goals, though the second one on a 6-on-4 advantage left them with only 60 seconds to attempt to forge a tie.
“We got to be ready to play,” Sharks forward Luke Kunin said. “You saw the second half of the game, we started to wear them down. Got pucks behind them. Started playing more towards our identity. Just got to be consistent in doing that for us to string together — really get the first (win). But if we do that consistently, that’s how we’re going to get wins for our group.
“We talked about that here after. We can’t start like that. You’re just chasing the whole time. We got to learn from it. It’s obviously tough right now but hopefully we can learn from it and take the good from the second half of the game and have that more often than not.”
It hasn’t helped that Celebrini has been sidelined since his auspicious debut, a hip injury keeping him out for a seventh consecutive game and the foreseeable future. Grier told reporters on Monday that the center will be sidelined for at least two more weeks.
The Sharks also didn’t have Smith on the ice Thursday. The 19-year-old has yet to get on the scoresheet in his first six NHL games, but his absence is part of a load management plan. It is similar to the path Anaheim took last year with Leo Carlsson in his rookie season. Smith also didn’t play in the Winnipeg contest on what was the second night of a back-to-back.
With Celebrini and Smith out of the lineup, Warsofsky’s job has only been made tougher. And the youngest bench boss in the league is struggling to keep his competitive nature hidden beneath a composed exterior. Following their 3-1 loss to the Ducks, Warsofsky said, “We need to hate to lose more than we love to win right now.”
On Wednesday, Warsofsky was encouraged by what he felt was a great practice and left the arena upbeat. A key part of his job at this moment is keeping his players from getting too frustrated.
“As a coach, you got to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Warsofsky said after that practice. “The process has been pretty good. We’ve played some good hockey. Our standings could be different. Our record could be different. But it is what it is. This is what we’ve got. We’ve played some really good hockey at times and done some really good things and just haven’t got rewarded for it. But there’s also some things that we shoot ourselves in the foot. Whether that’s penalties, turnovers, not feeling the momentum of the game. Not playing more consistently towards our identity. …
“Look, there’s going to be teams that go through these situations. Losing streaks in different parts of their season. For whatever reason, ours is happening again at this point in the beginning of our season. Everyone’s frustrated. Everyone is trying to find the answers and find the solutions.”
Ceci went to the Stanley Cup Final with Edmonton last season. The veteran defenseman has played in two other conference finals over his 12 seasons. He also experienced a couple of lean years in Ottawa earlier in his career. How does a team keep morale up in hard times?
“We just have to stick together as a team,” Ceci said. “Pick each other up off the ice. It’s tough what we’re going through. We are competing hard. We’re working hard. Just not getting the results.”
After their latest loss, the Sharks wore a look of desperation. Maybe that’s exactly what they need.
“I just want to win a game,” Zetterlund said. “Doesn’t matter how it looks and how we do it. We just got to win.”
(Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
