Jack Han on ‘Growing Pains’ for Sharks Youngsters Last Night (+)

I think that we’re going to be talking a lot about “youthful moments” with the San Jose Sharks in the coming years.

Head coach David Quinn used that as a euphemism after the Sharks dropped their season opener 4-1 against the Vegas Golden Knights.

“They had their good moments and then they had the youthful moments, which is going to happen,” Quinn specified about the play of youngsters William Eklund, Thomas Bordeleau, and Henry Thrun, “you just gotta live with it.”

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You can also toss Filip Zadina, 23, to that group with 22-year-old Thrun and 21-year-olds Eklund and Bordeleau.

“In the D-zone, we kind of mixed it up a little bit and wasn’t in the right spots where we’re supposed to be,” Zadina said. “Just cost us the goal, the second goal.”

Zadina was talking about his role in the Nicolas Hague point shot goal that “deflated” the San Jose Sharks. Up to then, San Jose had played the defending champs pretty evenly, tied 1-1, 38 minutes in.

The Sharks never recovered.

I spoke with ex-Toronto Marlies assistant coach Jack Han, currently of the must-subscribe Hockey Tactics Newsletter, who broke down some of Zadina, Bordeleau, and Thrun’s “youthful moments”.

This isn’t to exempt Eklund either – he just managed to avoid being on the ice for a goal against, it doesn’t mean that he was dramatically better, by any means.

And of course, it’s not to blame the youngsters for the loss either. To a man, the Sharks veterans were mostly bad to average.

Safe to say, everybody’s got a lot to learn.