BOSTON – The NHL’s schedule makers didn’t do the San Jose Sharks any favors this summer when they announced in July that the team would play eight of its first 12 games on the road.
That included what looked like a challenging six-game road trip against mostly Atlantic Division teams.
All things considered, including injuries and less-than-stellar even-strength analytics, the Sharks should be relatively pleased with where they stand just over three weeks into the regular season.
At 6-5-1, the Sharks are off to their second-best start in five years after finishing a six-game trip with a decent 3-2-1 record, including a 6-4 loss to the Boston Bruins on Saturday at TD Garden.
The Sharks now play the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday to begin a four-game homestand. While hardly perfect, the playoff-hopeful Sharks aren’t digging out of a big hole right off the bat, unlike in recent years.
“We got some results. We still have a long way to go,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said after Saturday’s loss. “We still have some things we’ve got to get better at.
“It starts with protecting our net front. That’s going to be one. We’ve got to start scoring five-on-five. That’ll be another one.”
Here’s what worked so far for the Sharks, and what hasn’t
WHAT’S WORKING
GOALTENDING
One of the main reasons the Sharks have been competitive in almost every game so far is their goaltending.
Between Yaroslav Askarov and Alex Nedeljkovic, the Sharks entered Saturday with a team save percentage of .891, which is tied for 12th in the NHL. That percentage rose dramatically in the first five games of the road trip; before the Sharks played the Nashville Predators on Oct. 15, the save percentage was an unsightly .855 (26th in the NHL).
Among the 50 goalies who have played at least four games this season, Nedeljkovic, per moneypuck.com, is eighth in goals saved above expected (4.6) and Askarov is 16th (2.7).
Askarov’s play has been better than his 3-4-0 record and .883 save percentage might indicate. Splitting starts seems to be working for him and the Sharks.
THE POWER PLAY
The Sharks have the sixth-best power play in the NHL at 26.9% (11-for-41).
With Dmitry Orlov and Michael Misa both scoring on the power play against the Bruins, the Sharks have scored at least one goal with the man advantage in five of their last seven games, including Macklin Celebrini’s overtime game-winner against the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday.
The Sharks have emphasized a quicker power-play approach: less time setting up, more time putting pucks on net. Those units will be tested now with injured forwards Alexander Wennberg and Igor Chernyshov likely out for a few weeks.
The Sharks aren’t getting the results they need in 5-on-5, so they’ll need power-play contributions. Tyler Toffoli has scored three power-play goals this season and is off to a terrific start, with nine points in 12 games.
STENBERG’S ADDITION
Rookie Ivar Stenberg is only 12 games into his NHL career and might already be one of the Sharks’ best players. After Saturday, he and Toffoli are tied for second on the Sharks with nine points each, and Stenberg was also tied with Bruins forward James Hagens for the league lead in rookie scoring.
The 19-year-old Stenberg, drafted No. 2 overall in June, has fit right in with the Sharks, and it’s tough to ask for much more than what he’s shown.
WHAT’S NOT WORKING
THIRD PERIOD APPROACH
The Sharks have been awful at finishing games and have now been outscored 21-12 in the third period. They blew multi-goal leads in four of their first eight games, and only some overtime and shootout heroics prevented them from leaving more points on the table.
Even during their 6-2 win over the Ottawa Senators, the Sharks, per Natural Stat Trick, were outchanced 13-2 in the third period. Askarov made 16 saves in the final 20 minutes.
Warsofsky has grown tired of the white-knuckle finishes.
“Doesn’t mean we can’t make plays. Doesn’t mean we can’t stay aggressive,” Warsofsky said after Thursday’s win. “But we’ve got to smarten up in some areas when we have the lead, when we start games. There’s an onion that needs to get peeled back here a little bit.”
DEFENSIVE STRUCTURE
The Sharks continue to rank near the bottom of the league in high-danger chances allowed. Entering Sunday, the Sharks had allowed 139 high-danger chances in 12 games, an 11.6-per-game average mirrored only by the Vancouver Canucks (11 per game).
Saturday, the Sharks allowed 18 high-danger chances and created only four during 5-on-5 play. They were also lousy in front of their own net where the Bruins scored four of their first five goals.
Is it the personnel? Is it the new swarm defense?
“It’s every guy on our team,” Warsofsky said
Those numbers will probably level out at some point, as last year’s team, with a widely derided defense corps, allowed an average of 9.6 high-danger chances in 82 games last season.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it: The Sharks’ defense pairs have struggled so far, with the Darnell Nurse and Michael Kesselring duo posting some of the worst advanced metrics in the NHL.
Nurse and Kesselring were on the ice for the Bruins’ first three goals Saturday. They were probably caught watching the puck on the first two goals, and David Pastrnak’s third-period goal went off Nurse’s stick and past Nedeljkovic to make it 3-3.
Per moneypuck.com, the Nurse-Kesselring pairing ranked 17th out of 17 duos — who have played at least 120 minutes together — with an expected goals-against-per-60 mark of 3.87.
Warsofsky said he’ll look at everything, including tweaking the defense pairs, before the team’s next practice on Monday morning. We believe him.
LACK OF CHANCES
Along with allowing an untenable number of scoring chances, the Sharks have also created far too few high-danger opportunities, just 80 through 12 games. Their HDGF% of 36.53, per Natural Stat Trick, ranks 32nd and last in the NHL.
The Celebrini, Will Smith, and Igor Chernyshov line, plus the Wennberg, Toffoli, and Mason Marchment line, were both creating more chances than they were allowing. But Wennberg and Chernyshov will both be out with injuries for at least the next few weeks, and other lines have struggled to generate quality chances during 5-on-5 play.
The Sharks need some other lines to produce, or their relatively positive start to the season will soon be forgotten.
