Sharks Locker Room: Learning To Stay in the Moment

Even the best teams aren’t at their best every night.

But good teams — playoff teams — manage, even when they’re struggling, to dig deep and get points.

The San Jose Sharks aren’t that, as they showed in a 2-1 loss to Utah Hockey Club on Friday.

More than any moment, the time to dig deep wasn’t just the Barrett Hayton game-winner with just 1:32 left.

Barrett Hayton scores in the final two minutes on route to a @utahhockeyclub victory! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/ZtRToZylpP

— NHL (@NHL) January 11, 2025

It was just as much the shift before, when the Sharks lost focus, and allowed Liam O’Brien to creep down and have back-to-back stuff chances all by himself. Alexander Georgiev, who stopped 23-of-25 shots, bailed out San Jose.

Tied game, two minutes left, you can’t forget O’Brien like that in front of your goalie. It looks like Macklin Celebrini (71) got caught puck-watching a covered Lawson Crouse (67) on the wall, leaving Henry Thrun (3) 2-on-1 down low with Nick Bjugstad (17) and O’Brien (38).

Utah won the resulting OZ faceoff that led to the Hayton strike.

It doesn’t matter that you’ve scored just one goal all night, from Fabian Zetterlund. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t get a shot, in a 20-minute stretch from the second and the third periods. It’s doesn’t matter if you’ve blown defensive details earlier in the game.

It’s all about the shift right now and dialing in on the details.

“We didn’t do a good enough job tonight [with] that,” Mikael Granlund said.

On the broadcast, Randy Hahn said that the San Jose Sharks lead the league with 19, now 20, true one-goal losses. Those are one-goal losses or two-goal defeats with an empty netter.

Learn to stay in the moment, and those 20 losses will become points and wins one day.

Just not today.

Ryan Warsofsky

Warsofsky was understandably terse after back-to-back disappointing #SJSharks efforts.

"Wasn't good enough tonight. Puck play was awful. Just wasn't enough."

One of the shorter post-game press conferences with him this year.

— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) January 11, 2025

Warsofsky, on the Utah game-winner:

We lose a puck, certain starts before that, but we lose coverage, then a guy gets in the middle of the ice, which you don’t want to
do.

Warsofsky says Kostin has a lower-body injury, no further update beyond that.

We had asked for Zetterlund post-game, and didn't get him. That sometimes suggests an injury. Take it how you will, Warsofsky didn't commit to Zetterlund's availability tomorrow.

— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) January 11, 2025

Henry Thrun

Thrun, on what he saw on the game-winner:

I was with Hayton. He’s the guy ended up scoring. I haven’t watched it yet, but from what I recall, I know kind of rolled high. I got picked. I got to find a way to get through there and get a stick, get a body, get something on it. Can’t give up a clean shot from inside the circle there, two minutes to go.

Georgie made a couple big save there at the end. And that’s what good goalies do. They make the save when you need them, but you can’t ask them to make three, four. So he did his job, and we gave up probably two, three too many chances in the game.

Thrun, on if the San Jose Sharks were thinking about any of the extracurriculars with Utah Hockey Club before the game:

We know that we’ve had some close battles with these guys, both younger teams, and I think hopefully trending upward, and I think that we’ll have some good battles to come. So we know this is a club, we’re going to be competitive with for a while. We feel that our last game at home, maybe let it slip a little bit. So we had that in the back of our mind.

In terms of the situation with Stenlund and Mack at the start of the year, that’s stuff that we remember. Guys on our team, remember that, it’s something that, it’s in the back of our mind, and if situations arise like that, we have each other’s back, and it’s something that we’re not gonna let our superstars kind of get pushed around like that. But it doesn’t necessarily change our game plan.

Alexandar Georgiev

Georgiev, on if he built from a strong Vegas game:

I’d like to think so. First period, they had good chances, stayed with it, made some good saves, felt comfortable.

Georgiev, on what he saw on the Barrett Hayton game-winner:

Just a guy rolling into the middle and just lost sight of the puck there, just tried to be big. Sounds like might have been kind of short side. Just beat me, I didn’t see the shot.

Watch the full interview here

Mikael Granlund

Granlund, on why the San Jose Sharks couldn’t generate any offense:

We weren’t really good with the puck. Didn’t really get anything going on all night. They defended well. But we gotta do better with the puck, win some battles, and sustain some OZ time.

Granlund, on set play that led to Zetterlund goal:

We have a few faceoff plays, and that worked out tonight.

Watch the full interview here