Sharks current record: 10-29-3 (.274)
Sharks projected record: 21-58-3 (.274)
NHL record for worst season in 82-game history: 14-57-11 (.238)

We have a victory to celebrate this week on Sharks Sterility Stare! The San Jose Sharks broke a 12-game losing streak, their longest of the year, on Thursday with a 3-2 victory in Montréal over the Canadiens. After scoring just 8 times in the prior 7 games, it seems like an offensive miracle to get 3 scores out of this roster on any given night, and it took 33 saves from goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood for this big victory.

The team now plays three more games before our next check-in column, and even though they’re all on the road, the Sharks could win each of them—with a little luck: at Ottawa (14-23-0), at Buffalo (18-20-4), and at Chicago (12-28-4). We can’t expect San Jose to rip off 4 straight wins, of course, so let’s just guess that maybe the team can beat the Senators and the Blackhawks. Asking them to beat the Sabres, too, maybe a lot.

But winning and losing can be contagious, and maybe with a little more jump in their skates, San Jose can pull off another run like it did from mid-November to mid-December when it played .500 hockey for awhile and looked like an organization that belonged. One thing to focus on is Blackwood’s quality-start percentage (13 of 24), compared to backup Kaapo Kähkönen (8 of 17). Blackwood is the best chance for more victories.

Yet he can’t start every night, of course, and the defense is still a literal sieve in front of him. The Sharks are giving up 35.5 shots on goal per game, the worst figure in the NHL, of course. San Jose also has the worst penalty kill in the league right now, too, at just 72.7 percent. These are fatal flaws for any team, but when you combine it with the reality that the Sharks have the least number of shots on goal this year? Yeah, disaster.

On paper, this is the worst team in the NHL—yet Chicago is not ahead of San Jose by that much in the Western Conference standings. We believe Head Coach David Quinn can pull the Sharks back up a bit, again, like he did earlier this season. The team only needs a few more wins to avoid worst-ever status, and we know Quinn has the ability. This may just come down to how bad the San Jose skaters want it, you know?