Sharks Locker Room: It’s Just Preseason…But San Jose Has A LOT To Work On

It’s just preseason.

But here’s a San Jose Sharks’ preseason trend that cuts both ways.

From Georgi Romanov to Mackenzie Blackwood to Vitek Vanecek, the Sharks have enjoyed excellent goaltending in the preseason.

Vanecek saved 40 of 42 shots on Friday night in a 3-2 Sharks’ shootout loss. Through two appearances, he has a gaudy .944 Save %. Warsofsky called Vanecek their best player in his preseason debut on Sept. 24 against the Vegas Golden Knights, and he probably repeated the feat tonight.

Blackwood has an .884 Save % through two games, not quite as impressive, but head coach Ryan Warsofsky tabbed him as the team’s best player in Tuesday’s 3-1 loss to Utah Hockey Club.

Romanov, against admittedly weaker competition, has a .942 Save %. He backstopped San Jose’s sole exhibition victory, a 3-2 OT win over the Ducks, an outstanding 32-save performance.

That’s all good…but the Sharks, still trying to put together a complete game, are repeating a trend from last year’s historically bad season.

37-20. 30-31. 34-19. 25-20. 42-25.

Those are shots on goal for each of the San Jose Sharks’ first five preseason, and in three of them, including tonight, San Jose has been soundly outshot.

That, of course, was the trend last year — if Blackwood or Kaapo Kahkonen weren’t extraordinary, the Sharks were likely losing and losing bad.

Last year, San Jose was outshot, on average, an NHL-worst 9.9 shots per game. So far this preseason, they’ve been outshot 10.6 shots per game.

It’s just preseason, but 5-on-5, the Sharks don’t appear to be sustaining much offensive possession and they’re having trouble killing plays in the defensive zone, all lowlights last year.

Scores have been close, but it’s not necessarily because of even strength action: Six of San Jose’s 11 preseason goals have been on the power play.

Chances are, the Sharks’ goaltending and power play won’t be this good all season.

One more time, it’s just preseason…but the Sharks have just one more tune-up before opening night on Oct. 10.

Safe to say, the Sharks have their work cut out for themselves, and Warsofsky knows it.

“It’s just a slow process, and we got to start speeding up, because come Thursday night, that pace is not even close to what it was tonight,” he said.

In fairness to the Sharks and their new head coach, they’re implementing different systems and integrating many new faces.

But if things are different than they were last year, at least in terms of 5-on-5 results, we haven’t quite seen that on the ice yet.

I know, I know, preseason stats.

It’s no news flash, of course: The Sharks aren’t expected to go from last to first this season.

But after a triumphant offseason, all this is a good reminder, based on what we’ve seen from the Sharks during the preseason so far — from the team to individual prospects — it’s best to temper expectations.

After the game, Warsofsky spoke on the San Jose Sharks prospects fighting for jobs.

Will Smith talked about facing Boston College teammate Cutter Gauthier.

Alex Wennberg touched on how the Sharks can get better.

Ryan Warsofsky

Warsofsky, on Danil Gushchin and Ethan Cardwell:

I thought Goosh really responded after just a slow first period, second and third was good. Him and Kostin in overtime had a good shift. Did some really good things.

Gonna go back and look at it, sure there’s some things that we need to improve on and some smaller detail, things that he needs to clean up.

[Same for] Cards, and he knows that, but did some good things.

Warsofsky, on Vitek Vanecek:

He was solid tracking pucks, kept us in the hockey game when we were probably under siege a little bit at times.

He looks really good.

Warsofsky, on Will Smith:

I thought he was good at times. Again, another guy that’s just learning the pace and how fast that the tempo is out there.

They’re deep down the middle with their four centers.

Obviously, matching up against McTavish at times, he’s going to be in a learning curve of how heavy these centers are in this league and how you can’t take your foot off the gas. But some really good teaching points for him tonight.

Warsofsky, on San Jose Sharks forwards getting beat up the ice on both Ducks goals:

That’s been the message since day one, right? Don’t take a breath on our trackbacks.

We don’t have a great gap with our defensemen, ends up in the back of the net in a 1-1 hockey game. Those are mistakes that just can’t happen.

The first goal, we blow coverage on an O-zone faceoff loss, and it goes from O-zone possession time to the back of our net, the momentum change of the game. So we have to start realizing these moments on how crucial they are.

Warsofsky, on Givani Smith:

Thought he was really good, thought he was engaged. It was just the one turnover. Probably last couple years, you do that, and kind of would go into a shell. I like how he responded from that.

Will Smith

Smith, on playing against ex-teammate Cutter Gauthier:

It’s fun. Obviously, spent a year with him there [in Boston College], and also being with him at the US program, we’ve spent a lot of time together. Especially last year having that run all the way to the National Championship. So it’s a special bond that whole team has.

Smith, on why he seems to be getting more comfortable from one preseason game to another:

As camp goes on, your legs get more into it. As we get closer to the season, you just feel more and more like yourself, that mid-season form.

Alex Wennberg

Wennberg, on what the San Jose Sharks need to improve before opening night:

If we’re going to be successful, we got to work hard. We got to skate, we got to forecheck, we got to make it hard for the other team. Right now, sometimes feel like we let the foot off the gas and not really give him a hard time, give them easy breakouts, give them easy routes. So little more tenacity, a little bit more [hardness] in our game.