Sharks Locker Room: Moving in Right Direction?

DALLAS — Ryan Warsofsky doesn’t want to talk about last year, and understandably so.

But there’s reason to believe, despite yet another winless start to this season, that the San Jose Sharks are, in his words, “moving in the right direction”.

It’s a small sample size, including Tuesday night’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Dallas Stars. Tyler Toffoli and Ty Dellandrea scored, and Mackenzie Blackwood turned back 36 shots.

So how does San Jose’s 0-1-2 start stack up against 2023-24 0-10-1 and 2022-23’s 0-5-0 starts?

Of course, the games have been close on the scoreboard — but it’s more than that, especially at 5-on-5.

All 5-on-5 stats are from Natural Stat Trick, and are score and venue-adjusted.

The (small sample size) numbers suggest that the San Jose Sharks, even when losing, are playing more competitive hockey.

“You’ve got to give them credit, they played really hard,” Stars head coach Pete DeBoer said.

It was also promising that they were able to go toe-to-toe with a Stanley Cup contender. Last year, it felt like Dallas was taking it easy on San Jose and could turn it on whenever they wanted.

It wasn’t so easy for the Stars tonight.

It’s a cold comfort — the Sharks are still off to another winless start. But it’s legitimate and meaningful progress, if they can keep it up.

Post-game, Warsofsky praised some of the less-publicized drivers of the Sharks’ competitive start.

Blackwood discussed how the San Jose Sharks room has embraced Dellandrea, Dellandrea shared his thoughts on coming back to Dallas, and Toffoli was candid about a Sharks’ 5-on-3 power play that let the team down.

Ryan Warsofsky

Warsofsky, on Blackwood’s pivotal save on Evgeni Dadonov breakaway:

That was a moment where we needed a save, and we got it, and I thought we kind of responded from it, got some momentum off of it. So he was really good, really good tonight.

Warsofsky, on going with the Dellandrea line on a defensive zone faceoff after the TV timeout, which led to the Dellandrea goal:

That line’s been one of our best lines, all three games.

Consistent. They know what their identity is. Their forecheck’s good. They’re good in their own end. I know they’ve gotten scored on a little bit, but they give us some really good minutes.

I thought Ty was really good again tonight, and [Nico Sturm and Carl Grundstrom] can forecheck, so they all complement each other really well.

Warsofsky, on Alex Wennberg:

Smart player, plays underneath the puck. He’s really defensively-minded, where he can understand what’s happening in the game. His hockey IQ is high. Can make plays and hold on to pucks. Tonight was probably one of his better games, and that line was again solid for us.

I think there’s another level they can get to offensively, but a step in the right direction.

Warsofsky, on going toe-to-toe with Stanley Cup contender Dallas Stars:

It’s a really good hockey team. We’re moving in the right direction. That’s what I’ll say. We’re moving in the right direction. We’ve still got a lot of work to do, just being more consistent with our game.

Mackenzie Blackwood

Blackwood, on the Dadonov save:

Yeah, just saw he got a breakaway. Tried to get a good gap on him, made a breakaway save there…(laughs)

Blackwood, on Dellandrea:

He’s a hard-working guy. Guys love him in the locker room. Great addition for our team. We’re all happy we got him.

Blackwood, on the mood in the San Jose Sharks room after a winless start:

A little bit of frustration. We want to win, but at the same time, I think guys are, we’re liking the direction of our team. No one wants to be satisfied with losing. It sucks. But we’re doing good things, so I think everyone will be positive and ready to go for the next game.

Ty Dellandrea

Ty Dellandrea, on scoring on best friend Jake Oettinger:

Something I wanted to do, but it really doesn’t matter. You gotta get wins. Find a way to close out games, you can get a win. So that’s all that matters.

Tyler Toffoli

Toffoli, on if the San Jose Sharks’ 5-on-3 needed to be more aggressive:

I mean, our power play sucks. It’s just pretty straight up there.