Sheng Peng
WASHINGTON — Nico Sturm has thought a lot about his post-hockey career.
Going in depth with him about where the 2024-25 San Jose Sharks are, and where he thinks they want to go, you can see a GM or coach in the 30-year-old’s future.
Sturm, a man of many interests, has also contemplated aviation or sports marketing or broadcasting. On the hockey side, he’s probably more interested in being a development coach than anything.
But for now? Sturm applied his 2022 Stanley Cup-winning experience with the Colorado Avalanche to set a hypothetical course for the rebuilding San Jose Sharks.
The pending UFA, realistically, might not be a part of that future. But in the years to come, it’ll be interesting to see how right Sturm was.
Let’s talk first about where the 9-13-5 Sharks are.
It’s a far cry from last year, of course.
“There’s not that Damocles’ sword over your head,” Sturm said, recalling the Greek myth.
The story goes, basically, that King Dionysius agreed to switch places with Damocles to give the envious courtier a true taste of a king’s life. Dionysius hung a sword, suspended by a single horse hair, over the luxurious throne where Damocles sat.
In Sturm’s telling, it’s a metaphor for the impending doom that the Sharks felt at every turn last season, even on the rare occasions when things appeared to be going well.
The San Jose Sharks this season, buoyed by greater talent and compete, have moved past that, though it’s been a rocky road.
“I really had that [feeling] on the bench in the first [three] games, like holy crap. It’s been a long time since I felt like this in this locker room. Like this feels good. Like we’re finally there,” Sturm said of the positivity that carried over from training camp to a 0-1-2 start that easily could’ve been three consecutive wins.
“Then all of a sudden, we completely lost it.”
Punctuated by humiliating 8-3 and 7-3 losses to the Winnipeg Jets and Vegas Golden Knights, the Sharks became the first team in NHL history to lose their first nine games in consecutive seasons, going 0-7-2.
“Focusing on too many things as an individual player,” Sturm said around that time. “We all want to win so bad that we try to control so many areas of the game.”
Winning or losing can snowball, and for San Jose, losing was once again begetting losing.
“We always work hard, even during that losing stretch, but the hard work seems a lot harder when you feel like you’re running up the hill,” Sturm said.
The San Jose Sharks aren’t running up the hill anymore: They’re 9-6-3 since that nightmare beginning.
There are many reasons why — they were bound to get some bounces, rookie star Macklin Celebrini got healthy, the Sharks simply stuck with it — and Sturm’s personal philosophy, what’s made him a successful role player, is one of them.
“I just focus on my game, my 11 minutes that I play, the PK shift and my faceoffs. I’m not worried about scoring goals or having an assist. What that does is it narrows down my responsibility to the areas that I can control,” he said. “I can’t control what the power play is doing. I can’t get upset if we don’t score. When I see the power play go out, I’m looking at the clock and I’m like, I’m back out in 1:25, that’s where my responsibility starts.”
Credit to GM Mike Grier too, who has brought in the right players for specific roles this season, like Tyler Toffoli for leadership and scoring, Alex Wennberg for two-way center, Barclay Goodrow and Ty Dellandrea to provide sandpaper and compete, Jake Walman and Timothy Liljegren for puck-moving, and Cody Ceci for stay-at-home defense.
Last year, too many Sharks were playing roles beyond their capabilities. It’s still happening this season, but not at an extreme.
“[We were] worried about too many things,” Sturm said. “That’s what’s helped me over these last two years, I think especially when things have gotten tough, is to focus on the things that I can control.”
To apply the Sword of Damocles here, Sturm isn’t worried about being the king but being the best courtier that he can be.
“The core of my game, the basis of my game, doesn’t change. I’m not going out there today in practice, and all of a sudden, I’m gonna start, instead of doing faceoffs and tips, I’m gonna start working on one-timers. I get two one-timers in the whole season,” he laughed. “That’s a good example, why would I start worrying about things like that? It’s not that I don’t want to improve on these things, but it’s so minuscule in my game that why would I take away energy from the things that I actually can impact the game and help the team with?”
This isn’t just a Sturm thing: He’s seen this up close and personal with the best teams that he’s been on, from playoff Minnesota Wild squads to the 2022 Stanley Cup-winning Avalanche.
“It comes from a place of confidence, of feeling prepared. When you look up and down the bench, knowing that that guy knows exactly what his role is, and he’s only worried about his responsibilities,” he said. “It’s a gut feeling. As a player on the bench, I’ve been on a lot of teams, Minnesota, Colorado especially, there’s no gray area.”
From first line to fourth, No. 1 defenseman to 6, everybody knows their role.
“[Nathan MacKinnon], he’s not worried about the penalty kill. He’s worried about things that he can control, right?” Sturm pointed out. “And I know when I look up and down the bench and I see a player like that, he’s 100 percent prepared to and focused on things that he can do. It gives me confidence when I look to my right and my left, and I know that that player is 100 percent secure in the things that he can control.”
The rebuilding San Jose Sharks, of course, aren’t quite there yet.
In Sturm’s long view, they’re trying to get to the peak that Colorado reached: The Avs, in their Cup-winning year, were essentially coaching themselves.
“We’re a long ways from that,” Sturm admitted. “But [this year is] a good step in the right direction.”