Our final entry on this season’s Sharks Sterility Stare drops today, as the Stanley Cup Playoffs have begun again without the San Jose Sharks. After making the postseason 19 times between 1998 and 2019, the Silicon Valley hockey franchise has fallen upon hard times with zero playoff berths since that 2019 postseason. It’s crushing to those who have been loyal to the Teal, but it is what it is, and we hope tomorrow is a better day.

Sharks record for 82 games this season: 20-50-12 (.317)
San Jose record last year (2023-2024): 19-54-9 (.287)
NHL record for worst season in 82-game history: 14-57-11 (.238)

Well, the good news is that the Sharks avoided infamy again, but considering this team was 10-13-5 at one point in December 2024, it’s sickening to see the squad finished on a 10-37-7 slide to end the year. Of course, the front office traded away “valuable” assets for future investments, again, and the San Jose organization might get lucky in the 2025 NHL Draft, too, with the worst record in the league once again.

Additionally, the cloud around “captain” Logan Couture has lifted, as he announced he won’t be playing any more (which we all sort of knew, anyway). He was always overrated, anyway, so good riddance. It’s just too bad the team got stuck with his salary the last few years and couldn’t trade his worthlessness away for some sort of return. It’s a rotten way to hurt the team’s chances by sitting so much of the last two seasons.

Onward and upward, however, right? Right.

Last year’s No. 1 overall pick, Macklin Celebrini, ended up leading this terrible team with 63 points in 70 games, which is pretty impressive all things considered. Otherwise, there was very little to highlight on offense in terms of long-term prospects. But William Eklund played well enough to top the roster in assists (41), so pairing Celebrini and Eklund on the top line with a capable right wing could matter soon.

San Jose probably is not going to be able to attract many top free agents, but maybe they could draft a top dog or trade for one somehow in order to get some scoring punch. The defense can only get better, of course, as maybe goaltender Yaroslav Askarov can take the big step next season now that he’s gotten his feet wet in the NHL. Yet the blue-line corps is in desperate need of fixing, too, for many obvious reasons.

The top four defensemen combined for just 8.3 Defensine Point Shares, which is really weak, considering the individual league leader in that savermetric category—Florida Panthers defenseman Gustav Forsling—posted 6.6 DPS all by himself. There seem to be too many holes in this roster, still, after several years of alleged “rebuilding” for the Sharks to compete in the Western Conference any time soon. Yet, who knows?

In a perfect world, San Jose would win the draft lottery again, and it could score an impact player, although there does not seem to be a singular one in this draft—you know, like a Connor McDavid type. Maybe the Sharks could convince a few free agents to come to town and help rebrand/relaunch the organization back into the NHL collective consciousness. Because as it is now, the Sharks are just a distant NHL afterthought.