Sheng Peng
David Quinn has no choice but to pick up the pieces of the San Jose Sharks.
After all, while the Sharks are 0-9-1, there are 72 games left in the year.
So after San Jose got steamrolled by Vancouver Canucks 10-1 on Thursday night, another rock-bottom in a season of rock-bottoms, I wondered how the bench boss would approach the next practice.
Would he raise his volume? Would he give the beleaguered Sharks a day off? Would he shake up the lines?
He didn’t really do any of that. Instead, he complimented my blazer.
The San Jose Sharks could’ve won 10-1 on Thursday night, instead of losing 10-1. Quinn was his usual jocular but thoughtful self the next day at practice.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow what happened last night. I know that didn’t feel good at all after the game,” Quinn said, after starting off with a kind word about my worn-in navy blue Banana Republic blazer. “You could sense we had some repairing to do this morning.”
The lines looked roughly the same.
If anything, he took a backseat at practice. I hardly heard him, except when he was giving loud-and-clear instruction.
“One of the things that I think is happening is that when you press and you want to make an impact, you start getting away from doing the things you do. You become less predictable. I think that’s when you look disjointed. That’s kind of what’s happened,” Quinn said. “It’s not out of selfishness, it’s out of wanting to make things better. We addressed that today. We talked about being predictable. Making sure that the other four guys out there just know what you’re going to do.”
Not to pick on one player in a 10-1 loss, but this Filip Zadina turnover, which led to a Pius Suter goal, appears to be an example of all that.
“We have let two, three, four losses build, and it’s affected the next game,” he said. “Frustration and doubt creeps in when you keep losing. You doubt yourself, you doubt your teammates, and you doubt everything. That’s what losing does. We’re human.”
The practice didn’t look distinctly different than any other practice, except for the increased focus on the penalty kill, after the Sharks gave up four power play goals last night.
That’s the second time this season that the Sharks have flipped the norm, which is usually to work on the power play. Of course, it helped that San Jose had a top-10 PK last year. The Sharks’ penalty kill is 31st in the NHL right now.
Quinn also took Zadina, Ty Emberson, and Jacob MacDonald aside, speaking with them one-on-one.
In other words, it looked to be a fairly typical San Jose Sharks practice.
My sense is, instead of launching into an extreme, Quinn wanted to stay even-keel and signal to his players that he still believes in them. Today was about building up, not breaking down. That might not be a popular direction for an understandably agitated and frustrated fanbase.
But an 82-game season is a marathon, not a sprint.
“It’s a process,” Quinn stressed. “It’s not gonna happen overnight.”
One ten-game segment for the San Jose Sharks is over. It couldn’t have gone any worse. They’re 0-9-1 and have scored a league-worst 10 goals and given up a league-worst 44 goals.
“This is about getting better,” Quinn said.
Better could mean that youngsters like Zadina, Emberson, William Eklund, Fabian Zetterlund, and others are playing well, demonstrating that they can be key members of the next playoff-bound Sharks squad.
Better could mean that veterans like Mike Hoffman, Alexander Barabanov, Anthony Duclair, Kevin Labanc, Mikael Granlund, and company are finally producing, which could make them attractive Trade Deadline pieces.
Better could mean that the Sharks have figured out a long-term solution between the pipes in Mackenzie Blackwood and/or Kaapo Kahkonen.
Better certainly means not getting embarrassed as often as San Jose has been on this 10-game winless streak.
And better doesn’t stop the Sharks from a plum first-round pick or the first-overall selection.
San Jose will get a chance to be better pretty much immediately, as they take on Erik Karlsson and the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night.
“It’s better than sitting on that [10-1] result for three or four days,” Quinn said.