Warsofsky Speaks Honestly About Klingberg (+)

DALLAS — What the highest, but still realistic ceiling for the San Jose Sharks’ power play right now?

Head coach Ryan Warsofsky still believes that it’s John Klingberg running it.

The 33-year-old Klingberg, however, has had a difficult debut campaign in teal.

Coming off persistent hip issues over the last half-decade, the Sharks inked the Klingberg to a one-year, $4 million contract over the summer, after a solid, albeit sheltered showing with the Edmonton Oilers in their recent Stanley Cup Final run.

The San Jose Sharks were hoping that the now-healthy Klingberg could re-capture some of the form that made him one of the most feared offensive blueliners in the NHL in his 20’s. From 2014 to 2022, Klingberg was seventh among all defensemen with 0.68 Points Per Game.

Klingberg has struggled though in his return to the top power play quarterback job. Beset by costly turnovers and demoted from PP1 on multiple occasions, Klingberg has just two goals and seven points in 20 appearances.

But in Saturday’s practice, Klingberg was on top of PP1 once again.

Is Warsofsky trying to squeeze water from a stone? The San Jose Sharks bench boss spoke honestly about what he’s hoping to get out of Klingberg, and why the veteran d-man keeps getting chance after chance.

So what’s Warsofsky hope for from Klingberg? How are they trying to get him to change his game?

Remember, we’re talking about realistic solutions: The organization clearly doesn’t see 19-year-old Sam Dickinson or AHL star Luca Cagnoni or the also struggling Shakir Mukhamadullin as ready to take over the reins on the man advantage just yet. Otherwise, they’d already be given that task.

Dmitry Orlov has run the power play with mixed results this season, and historically, he’s a PP2 QB at best.

Sheng Peng: We know John Klingberg isn’t turning back the clock to a decade ago. But he also still sees the game at a high, high level. So what are you ultimately trying to get out of him, putting him back on PP1 again and again?

Ryan Warsofsky: We’re in this phase of his professional career where, right, he’s not 24 anymore. He’s had surgeries, where he’s at in his career, he has to come to the realization that he’s not 24, 25, and sometimes your game needs to change a little bit. I think he’s been a little bit better 5-on-5, in that sense. 

Can we get him to distribute the puck and be [just] a distributor where, when he was younger, he ran the whole thing, he was shooting the puck. So it’s a lot different than he was used to. And it takes time. 

In your head, you’re thinking, ‘Man, I’m still that same player.’ It takes a little bit of time to be like, ‘Okay, I’m not that same player.’ 

And you see that, look at Corey Perry. Corey Perry came in as a first-line power forward, big part of that Anaheim Ducks organization, and now he’s a bottom-six guy, and he’s accepted that role, and he plays that role to a T. 

Can we get Klingy, in a different sense, to be that player? That’s why we signed him, to help us with our power play. 

And at the end of the day, this isn’t perfect of what we’re trying to get going here long-term, in a lot of different ways. It’s not like we have [prime] Ray Bourque sitting on the sidelines to put in there. 

We have to work with Klingy, to get him going and understand what we want him to do in that power play. At the end of day, it’s not just Klingberg that’s making mistakes. It’s Will Smith, it’s Macklin, it’s Eklund, it’s Wennberg. We have to get this thing right. 

By no means do we sit in there and say it’s been good. We know it’s not good enough. We have to be better – coaches, players – to get this thing, making it a threat. And we know we’ve been talking about this for two years, and we’ve got to just keep working at it. We worked at it again today, and at some point it’s got to click. 

So at the end of the day, it’s not just Klingberg that’s making mistakes.

SP: It appears, if you can eliminate John’s ugliest mistakes, that he’s still a skilled puck-mover. Is the thought that he can still be effective on the power play, if he simplifies his game and focuses mainly on distributing the puck?

That’s what we’re looking for, and I think he’s the best threat for us up there to do that. He gives flat passes. He can read and manipulate a power play. He can distribute it. 

It’s when we try to do too much is where we get into trouble. Again, it’s not just him. You can look at the power play last night. Go back and watch it. There were some other guys that made some big-time mistakes. We’re forcing things. So there’s four other guys on the ice. Can he be better? For sure.

But we have to work with him to get what we want him to do.