Sharks Locker Room: The Fear & the Future

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The San Jose Sharks saw, hopefully, their future on Saturday night.

I’m not talking about their one-sided 3-1 loss to the Florida Panthers or forcing Mackenzie Blackwood to make 49 ultimately fruitless saves.

Tyler Toffoli scored a late goal.

I’m talking about the 2024 Stanley Cup champions and the distance between them and the rebuilding Sharks.

“They’re competitive, they’re big, they’re heavy. They get on you. They never quit. They come at you in waves. They got goaltending, they got the big defensemen. I mean, they’ve got it all. That’s the reason why they won the Stanley Cup,” San Jose Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky said after morning skate. “But what I like is they’re ultra-competitive.”

The Sharks, meanwhile, are still struggling to believe, which is perfectly understandable. After a rousing 2-1 OT victory against the Washington Capitals, they’ve followed with back-to-back substandard efforts.

Such is life in a rebuild.

“That’s a next step for us as a team, is to play with that swagger and that belief in ourselves, not only when things are going good and when you have the puck,” Nico Sturm said post-game.

“I think at times we play in fear and we lose our swagger, and that’s where we’re at right now,” Warsofsky said.

“There’ll be phases in the game where it seems like they’re all over you,” Sturm said. “Stay confident in those situations and not panic.”

The defending champs, clearly, don’t lack for belief or compete.

But as Warsofsky noted in the morning, that’s not necessarily just from the head coach.

“Yeah, Paul [Maurice] does a really, really good job. Not taking anything away from him. But I think he would say too, and I think I heard him say it in the Final, where he was kind of steering the boat, and the players were driving it, and that’s when you win,” Warsofsky said. “You look at championship teams, that’s usually what happens, is the Tkachuks, the Ekblads, the Sam Bennetts, the Reinharts, the Barkovs, they’re driving it, and they’ve created this culture and this identity of what that team looks like.”

Nico Sturm, part of the 2022 Stanley Cup-winning Colorado Avalanche, basically told San Jose Hockey Now the same thing recently, that the Avs players were “driving the bus” that season, and they were, in some respects, coaching themselves.

“I think if you ask the other coaches in the National Hockey League, we’d all want the same thing, and that’s the recipe for success, and that’s what we need to get to here in San Jose,” Warsofsky noted.

Good news, the San Jose Sharks might already have a couple of the Panthers-like ingredients in their mix.

Maurice compared 2024 first-overall pick Macklin Celebrini to his captain Aleksander Barkov in the morning. Between Blackwood or star prospect Yaroslav Askarov or both, the Sharks might have the answers in goal.

But this Florida trip has been a reminder: The San Jose Sharks are still looking up to the best teams in the league.

Nico Sturm

Sturm, on the Panthers as a model for the San Jose Sharks:

They’re big, they’re fast, they got good goaltending. I thought their D are incredible in terms of their gap control. They’re always on top of you. They surf up. There’s never time in the neutral zone. It’s kind of in your head a little bit, every time you touch the puck, you got somebody right in your grill. Very well-coached, well-rounded team, I think, top to bottom.

Sturm, on next step for #SJSharks as a team: "That's a next step for us as a team, is to play with that swagger and that belief in ourselves, not only when things are going good and when you have the puck, but knowing that you're gonna go into a tough building against probably…

— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) December 8, 2024

Tyler Toffoli

Toffoli, on Mario Ferraro fighting Sam Bennett:

He’s sticking up for his teammate [Ty Dellandrea]. He did an amazing job, and that’s why he’s one of the more loved guys in locker room.

Toffoli, on Blackwood:

He was amazing. He’s been amazing all season long, and kept us in games. Tonight could have been 10-nothing.

Ryan Warsofsky

Warsofsky, on if the San Jose Sharks respected the Panthers too much tonight:

No, I don’t think we respected them too much. They have our respect. I think they have the whole league’s respect. I think at times we play in fear and we lose our swagger, and that’s where we’re at right now.

Warsofsky, on the power play tonight:

Had some decent looks, but it’s just not good enough. It’s not a threat. We have no attack. We don’t shoot enough pucks to create some chaos. That’s 5-on-5 too. You see them. They shoot everything. And that was kind of our message tonight. And we didn’t do it.

Warsofsky, on how the Panthers earn their own luck by sticking their nose into everything:

That’s a really good team over there. That’s what they do. That’s why they win. That’s the culture that [Paul Maurice has] brought, and he’s done a really good job. That’s another team like we just played in Tampa. That’s what it should look like.

Warsofsky, on Blackwood:

Unbelievable, unbelievable. One of the best goalie performances I’ve ever seen, really. Stood on his head for us to be in that game on the scoresheet. What he did was super-impressive. Not surprised, though.