Everything Grier Said: From Plattner to Quinn to Celebrini (+)

The San Jose Sharks are 0-10-1, and if you can believe it, that’s not the worst of it.

On Thursday, the Sharks were cut up by the Vancouver Canucks 10-1. Then Saturday, they were pummeled by the Pittsburgh Penguins 10-2.

Those 20 goals against tied for the most allowed by the Sharks in a two-game span in franchise history. It was also the first time since the Boston Bruins in 1965 that a team had given up 10 or more goals in consecutive contests.

The Sharks are at rock-bottom, so it was as good a time as any to talk to San Jose Sharks GM Mike Grier.

Grier stepped up today, standing in for head coach David Quinn and the players during their scheduled post-practice media availability.

Grier, on Sharks’ Struggles: ‘This can’t go on for much longer’

Grier touched on a wide range of topics over 45 minutes, from meeting with the team — Quinn’s job security — why the Sharks have struggled — owner Hasso Plattner’s reaction to the losing — if this current Sharks roster is good enough to become “hard to play against” — some of the top prospects in the San Jose system — how long the rebuild might take — and how he’s evaluating Quinn and the Sharks for the rest of the season.

Grier’s opening statement:

We are where we are as a franchise and what we’re going through and the process of transitioning.

We kind of expected some pain as we go through this kind of situation, but the last two games in particular, it hasn’t been good enough. The compete, the effort, it’s not good enough and it’s unacceptable. From my standpoint, from the players’ standpoint, it’s something that can’t happen, and it’s something that we’re going to work to correct.

Starting with me, everyone’s got to be better. I got to be better, the coaches got to be better, the players have to be better, everyone has to be better. We had a great crowd the other night and they were great, all to their credit. We’re lucky to have them, they were good all the way through the whole game.

Certainly, they deserve better than what we’ve given them, these last two games. That kind of performance is outright unacceptable, the fans deserve better, the organization deserves better, Hasso deserves better. It’s not anything I take lightly.

I met with the players today, I’ve been meeting with the coaches, the staff over the last few days trying to put my finger on what’s going on and what we can do better to correct this and start working ourselves out of this. Everyone knows what the expectation is, what the standard is, and what I expect of them. We’ll see how they respond here over the next week, in the next couple of games as we go forward.