San Jose Sharks Struggle to Stay Afloat this Season

Bay Area’s NHL team stumbles out of starting gate for 2019-2020

The San Jose Sharks are in unfamiliar territory. Just a year removed from reaching the Western Conference Finals last April, San Jose’s team has not come together as most would have expected. 

The Sharks are on pace to miss the playoffs for only the second time in the past 16 seasons. The Sharks’ 2019-2020 season has featured a head coaching change, fluctuating lineups and a change in goal—seasoned goalkeeper Martin Jones has taken a backseat to current starter Aaron Dell. 

Despite all of their changes, San Jose has settled in the bottom third of the Western Conference. Barring an incredible comeback, there will be no playoff hockey in San Jose—or all of California—this April. 

The other two California-based hockey teams, the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings, are in a similar position as the Sharks: absent from the current playoff picture. 

Besides a brief winning streak in November, the Sharks have not been able to put together consistent periods of good hockey this season. 

Doug Wilson, the team’s general manager, made a surprising coaching change in early December. 

Wilson decided to fire the Sharks’ head coach, Peter DeBoer, only a few months after DeBoer was two wins shy of taking his team to the Stanley Cup Finals. 

Despite DeBoer’s past success, coaching in the National Hockey League (NHL) is a difficult job. This season alone, seven NHL coaches have been fired—and there is still a little under half of a season to play. 

On Dec. 11, Wilson made the decision to fire DeBoer after his team failed to meet high expectations with a 15-16-2 record. 

Wilson proceeded to promote assistant coach, Bob Boughner, to interim head coach. Despite the new voice behind the bench, San Jose has still struggled to find its groove—they have gone 9-12-2 since Boughner was named head coach. Last season, the Sharks finished the regular season with 27 regulation losses. This year, they have already matched that total. 

The bad news? They still have two months left of hockey to play, and the team’s losing ways are not expected to slow down anytime soon. As the NHL trade deadline looms near, the Sharks are expected to be “sellers” for the first time in nearly five years. 

With aging players and expiring assets, Wilson could look to get a return for some players that are near the end of their playing career—Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton. 

The two forwards are both 40 years old and are playing on one-year contracts that end after this season. 

Even though the two have donned a Sharks jersey together for over a decade, Doug Wilson has the opportunity to trade the forwards to a team with a chance to hoist the Stanley Cup this year.

The Sharks do not have their team’s first-round pick this season, as it was traded to Ottawa in the acquisition of Erik Karlsson. San Jose’s lack of draft capital in recent years is finally beginning to hurt the team’s roster. 

Nonetheless, the Sharks could regain some value if they choose to trade Marleau and Thornton before the deadline, which could be especially important for next year. 

“While we are all very disappointed in the team’s performance thus far this season, Doug [Wilson] has a long history of leading our team to success,” team owner Hasso Platter said. “The last time we failed to meet our winning standards in the 2014-15 season, we were able to quickly rebound and re-establish a winning culture for the next several years.”

Platter has the confidence in his hockey operations staff, especially Wilson, to lead his team back to the playoffs in the 2020-2021 season and to avoid a rebuild. 

Doug Wilson will have to make some difficult changes in the next few months—especially with aging players Marleau and Thornton. 

This season may be lost for the Sharks, but they still have the opportunity to exchange some of their older players for assets that could make the future much brighter in San Jose.

Contact Nic Carpino at ncarpino@scu.edu (408) 554-4852.