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Sharks Locker Room: On Goodrow’s ‘Important’ Value to Team, Eklund’s 1st Fight

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2 weeks ago

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Credit: Dean Tait/Sport Shots

Barclay Goodrow isn’t the player that he used to be.

But he’s still a valuable player that the young San Jose Sharks can learn a lot from.

It’s not just about the willingness of Goodrow (23) to take on 6-foot-7 Jamie Oleksiak (24) after the giant felled Mario Ferraro (38) with a hard hit, at the end of a 5-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken.

It’s a mentality that head coach Ryan Warsofsky believes that the Sharks are still lacking in.

“What you can learn from Goody is he wants to impact the game [by] not just scoring goals,” he said. “Our young players, they think the way to impact the game is scoring goals. It’s not scoring goals all the time.”

Warsofsky then rattled off ways that the two-time Stanley Cup winner still impacts the game: On the penalty kill (he’s the Sharks most-used PK’ing forward), the simplicity of his game as a model for the rest of the team to follow, his willingness to fight (he’s the team leader in fights) and stand up for his teammates, being conscientious defensively, having a good stick, and being physical.

It’s the attitude of a winner, a veteran who understands that winning hockey isn’t just about scoring goals, it’s also about a lot of other little things that help you outscore your opponent.

“He is one guy that I really hope our young players appreciate, because he’s an important piece of this team, and he’s an important piece of us getting out of this thing,” Warsofsky said, “because he knows what it takes to play in this league, knows what it takes to win, he knows what it takes to impact the game.”

This is as good an explanation that you’ll get for why Goodrow is in the San Jose Sharks’ bottom-six on a nightly basis over, say, more skilled forwards like Nikolai Kovalenko, Klim Kostin, Carl Grundstrom, Noah Gregor, among others.

The aforementioned wingers, at this point, are more physically gifted than the 32-year-old, no doubt.

But they also don’t have Goodrow’s devotion to the little things. Another way to put it, Warsofsky can always trust that Goodrow is playing with the right intentions.

He obviously doesn’t believe that of a lot of his players.

“Barclay Goodrow is an important piece of this team,” Warsofsky said, “and he will be going forward.”

Goodrow, signed for two more years at $3.642 million AAV, might be a polarizing player for the fanbase, but clearly not for Warsofsky.

Ryan Warsofsky

Warsofsky, on his third line:

With Cam [Lund], it’s just a young player, thrown a lot at him, and the pace picks up. That’s a fast, fast team that can skate and that probably caught him by surprise.

They weren’t very good.

Will Smith

Smith, on Luke Schumann:

It’s always fun. Having that opportunity to meet him and have him be around the rink was a lot of fun, have him come to a game was fun too. See him read the line-up was a blast, and I hope he had a great time.

Alexandar Georgiev

Georgiev, on his performance:

Obviously, just didn’t have my best today. Sometimes, that happens, they just capitalized on the chances they had.

William Eklund

Eklund, on how San Jose Sharks could’ve been better:

Letting them in too easy. Sometimes, we give them those 2-on-1 chances, we can’t do that. They’re just a good team. We got to capitalize on our chances too. I got to score on a couple of those.

 

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