It just keeps getting worse for the San Jose Sharks, and we’re here with our second installment of the weekly Sharks Sterility Stare—our poor attempt at an alliterative followup to the Oakland Futility Watch for the Athletics earlier this year. San Jose is now an ugly 0-9-1 on the year with little hope of a victory anywhere in near sight. In fact, the Sharks are so bad, they lost a game at home on Thursday night by a 10-1 margin.

That is not a typo.

Vancouver laid down that beating on San Jose, and it sucks, because in years of covering the Sharks for a CBS affiliate that no longer exists, we really observed what assholes the Canucks fans are when they come down to Silicon Valley—and this was even before Vancouver choked away the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals against the Boston Bruins. Heck, Canucks fans make the Massholes look pretty nice, all things being equal. Surprise.

But we digress: this is how bad the Sharks are right now. San Jose is 32nd in scoring (10 goals), 32nd in defense (45 goals allowed), and 32nd in the SRS rankings overall, despite having played the No. 5 SOS so far this season. Heck, next worst offenses below to Chicago, St. Louis, and Washington—all of which have scored 19 goals apiece. The next-worst defense? Minnesota (43), who has scored 38 goals at least so far.

So, yeah: the San Jose goal differential is bad, but it shouldn’t be that bad. Based on advanced analytics, the Sharks should only be the third-worst team in the league (minus-9 goals)—behind Calgary (minus-10) and Washington (minus-12). San Jose isn’t getting the most out of its team, that’s obvious, because the Flames (2-7-1) and the Caps (4-4-1) both have much better records than they should, perhaps. Is it coaching? Hmm.

Sharks Head Coach David Quinn is in his fifth season as an NHL head coach, after he guided the New York Rangers from 2018-2021. He was over .500 there, but he also had good goaltending. With San Jose, he’s had no such thing since taking over in 2021, and the results have been bad. But again, the Sharks should not be this bad. The Flames have a rookie head coach, basically, and the Caps do as well—why are they better?

Some of it does come down to talent, but again, based on the sabermetrics, the Sharks should be better than both those teams, at least in terms of goal differential. The first issue is the goaltenders, really: San Jose is minus-17 goals based on defensive analytics alone, whereas the Flames are just minus 11 and the Caps are merely minus 8. So that’s where the Sharks need immediate improvement. Is it going to happen this year?

Both San Jose goalies are in their age-27 seasons: Kaapo Kähkönen (.876 S%, 4.30 GAA) and Mackenzie Blackwood (.895 S%, 4.17 GAA). In 51 starts now with the Sharks, Kähkönen has proven himself worthless with a 3.69 GAA—yes, the teams have been bad, too, but goalies have the toughest job in the sport, and if they’re not up to it, they need to be let go. Maybe San Jose could find some trade value for him elsewhere.

As for Blackwood, his 2.97 career GAA before this season over five years with New Jersey suggests he should be better, yet it’s hard without a solid blue-line corps in front of you. We can’t put it all on the goalies—however, only two of the current 10 defensemen on the Sharks roster have negative Point Shares right now, which is impressive considering this team doesn’t have any wins yet. The top-eight blue liners are solid.

Perhaps it’s small tweaks like this that can change the season: release/trade Kähkönen and cycle through the goaltenders in the organization until one sticks while giving Blackwood as many starts as possible in the meantime. Then, reduce the defenseman rotation as much as possible to the top eight guys who aren’t embarrassing themselves. Those two adjustments could fix the defense, but there’d still be the offense …

Right. Eleven skaters who have hit the ice this year in the first 10 games for San Jose have zero points: zero. Three of those 11 guys have appeared in all 10 games, too: D Jan Rutta, center Nico Sturm, and D Kyle Burroughs. The three of them should be discarded, as they’re bringing nothing to the offensive equation. Like with Kähkönen, just cycle through all skaters in the organization until you find plucky guys who stick.

The Sharks must be proactive if they’re going to avoid historical disaster here. Either way, they can still get the No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft, and we know picks like that can be franchise changers. There’s a way to tank, save face, and still come out on top here for San Jose. We have just outlined how. Let’s see if General Manager Mike Grier is up to the task of doing what the Sharks franchise needed to find new life in 2024.