Sharks Locker Room: Why You Give Your Best, When It’s Not Good Enough

What’s this say about the San Jose Sharks?

“We played how we wanted to play,” head coach Ryan Warsofsky said after San Jose’s 2-1 OT loss to the Winnipeg Jets.

Per Natural Stat Trick, the Sharks were strafed 15-6 in High-Danger Chances and 63-31 Shot Attempts at 5-on-5, and 35-17 shots overall.

Except…Warsofsky was right.

“You know that they’re coming for us. We really can’t force anything,” William Eklund said, after a third period where the Sharks blew another lead. “So I think we played pretty simple, and that’s what you gotta do some games.”

The Sharks were outshot 13-3 in the third period.

Except…Eklund was right too.

But this is the reality when the worst team in the NHL, the 15-36-8 Sharks, take on the best team in the league, the 41-14-3 Jets.

San Jose played hard and smart, Vitek Vanecek was terrific, but this is how far the Sharks are from the top.

But credit to San Jose, who has come out of the 4 Nations break with engaged (but losing) performances at the Calgary Flames and Winnipeg.

It’s a winning mentality, to keep giving your best when it’s not good enough.

An aside: Warsofsky received a lot of flak from fans for starting Alex Wennberg, Collin Graf, and Mario Ferraro in OT. This more defensive posture didn’t work out, with Mark Scheifele scoring on this trio in the opening shift of 3-on-3 play.

For what it’s worth, I had no issue with the decision, but of course, it’s always noteworthy when you decide to start OT without your best offensive players and lose on the opening shift. San Jose Sharks fans have seen that script play out recently with past regimes, both Bob Boughner and David Quinn.

“Did you watch Wennberg tonight? He was one of our best players,” Warsofsky shot back, when I asked his thinking. “That was the biggest thing.”

Wennberg was good tonight, as I observed in my San Jose Sharks’ running game diary — ignore the charts! And of course, if you’re able to survive Winnipeg’s cream-of-the-crop OT trio of Scheifele-Kyle Connor-Josh Morrissey, you can now throw your best offensive group, presumably Macklin Celebrini-William Eklund-Jake Walman against the deep Jets’ just slightly-weaker second group.

It’s not a big deal, it’s just a stratagem that didn’t work out.

Ryan Warsofsky

Warsofsky, on another close loss:

My heart breaks for the group, to be honest with you, to play that hard against one of the best teams in the league, be 20 seconds away, whatever it was, it stinks, it hurt. But that’s life, some adversity we’ve gone through. It’s been a challenging year for everyone in the organization, really, and only thing we do is just keep plugging away.

Warsofsky, on starting OT with Alex Wennberg-Collin Graf-Mario Ferraro:

Did you watch Wennberg tonight? He was one of our best players. Really good in the faceoff dot, good percentage. Wins the faceoff to start. We get the possession, gets a really Grade-A chance. That was the biggest thing.

Warsofsky, on both Georgiev and Vanecek coming out of break with strong starts:

It’s really encouraging to see both them come off arguably two of their better starts of the year. So hopefully they can continue to build on it. We had a discussion with both those guys, how they need to continue to step up and work to help this hockey team, and they’ve done that.

Watch the full interview here

Vitek Vanecek

Vanecek, on if he worked on anything over the break:

You’re working everyday on something.

I’ve been watching Hellebuyck. I think he’s a very good goalie. I like how deep sometimes he plays. So I was working on that.

Today, I felt really comfortable with that, because I have a more of a chance at rebounds.

Collin Graf

Graf, on the challenge of facing the NHL-best Jets power play:

Obviously, they’re No. 1 in the league. So it’s a big task. I thought we handled it as well as you can.

No. 1 for a reason, they have an extra guy, you’re going to give up something.

But if you look at it…a lot of [their chances] were from the outside. You’re going to take that.

Watch the full interview here

William Eklund

Eklund, on how the San Jose Sharks could’ve created more offense in the third period:

I don’t know. We play Winnipeg, they’re on a nine-game heater. You know that they’re coming for us. We really can’t force anything. So I think we played pretty simple, and that’s what you gotta do some games.

Watch the full interview here