This is the third installment of the Sharks Sterility Stare, and it brings some good news: the San Jose Sharks won two games in the past week, and we were there for the first of them. Alas, the good news came to an end last night with a 5-0 loss to the defending Stanley Cup champions, but whatever: the Sharks are on the board, folks, and there is a glimmer of hope that this squad won’t be the worst one in recent NHL history.

A glimmer.

The team is on pace for 14 or 15 victories this year, despite its 2-11-1 record through 14 games this season. Of course, the goal-scoring differential does not suggest that projection as something hopefully, since San Jose has been outscored 63-17 this season. As we mentioned in our Tuesday report on that night’s 2-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers, when the goaltender(s) know they have to be perfect to win, it’s really hard.

With just 16 goals scored in 14 games, the Sharks lack the ability to score; even the best goalie in NHL history would struggle to put up a .500 record with that kind of support. And the San Jose organization certainly does not have any goaltenders resembling that description on its personnel list. Mackenzie Blackwood is decent enough, but he cannot single-handedly carry this team to a lot of victories this year.

As we discussed last weekend, Blackwood is a solid player—who looks good on a good team, as he did in his rookie year with the New Jersey Devils. However, he saw his starts decline every year since then with the Devils, and maybe that’s how he ended up on this iteration of the Sharks:

  • Starts: 43-35-24-20 in successive years from 2020-2023
  • Wins: 22-14-9-10
  • GAA: 2.77-3.04-3.39-3.20
  • Save Percentage: .915-.902-.892-.893

His .899 save percentage this season with the starts so far in 9 starts is encouraging, but Blackwood is getting peppered every night as the San Jose skaters get outshot on a 2-to-1 basis, overall. That is not a recipe for success, so wins still will be hard to come by for the Sharks, despite this week’s two-win success—the second victory, by a 3-2 score, coming on Thursday night against the high-scoring Edmonton Oilers.

The positives? The San Jose squad held on to leads in both of the two wins, something which had eluded the team in the first 11 games. That is a sign of growth and learning for the Sharks, and it will serve them well for confidence as the season progresses. Nothing is more painful than losing a third-period lead and then the game as well. Like a baseball team not being able to finish out late-inning leads, it’s the same in hockey.

We saw this with the Oakland Athletics this year, of course, and eventually, it got better. Hopefully the Sharks will experience the same growth curve this season. San Jose needs Blackwood to become their Trevor May, in essence. Only time will tell, and the next time we visit the Sharks in person on December 12 against the Winnipeg Jets, with a little luck, San Jose will be a much better team by then. We shall see …