Thanks for Playing: San Jose Sharks

Each spring 16 NHL teams play for Lord Stanley's Cup. At the end one team is left holding the cup while the other 15 teams can only think of what might have been. 

This is about one of the 15 teams who wasn't so lucky.

How They Finished: 

43-29-10   96 points  2nd in Pacific Division, 7th in Western Conference. 

What Went Wrong: 

The best players in the regular season failed to show up in the playoffs.

The Sharks had three players (Logan Couture, Patrick Marleau, Joe Pavelski) reach the 30 goal mark during the season. Of those three only Couture scored a goal during the series against St. Louis.

Joe Thornton and Martin Havlat each scored two goals in the series. The combined total by those two players matches the total goals scored by the rest of the Sharks in the series.

Special teams also failed San Jose as they gave up six power play goals to the Blues. Meanwhile the Sharks could never get their power play going, only scoring two times on seventeen chances.

It's hard to beat a team like St. Louis if you can't score goals. 

Where Do They Go From There: 

Last summer GM Doug Wilson traded for Brent Burns and Martin Havlat in separate deals hoping those two moves would be enough to push San Jose over the top after being eliminated in the Western Conference Finals two years in a row.

That didn't happen as the Sharks regressed finishing 7th in the West. For a team that has a projected cap space of $8 million there isn't much they can do in free agency.

The two players who are mostly linked to the playoff failures of San Jose, Thornton and Marleau have no movement clauses. Unless either one demands a trade both should return to the Silicon Valley next season.

The best hope for San Jose is that Havlat can stay healthy next season after playing in only 39 games this past season. As for free agents, I see them bringing back forwards Daniel Winnik, Brad Winchester, and Torrey Mitchell.

When looking at the Sharks roster I think this year was an aberration. San Jose missed the goal scoring ability of Dany Heatley and Devon Setoguchi. A healthy Havlat fixes part of that problem.

My guess is Doug Wilson will bring back most of this roster for another run at the cup. If it's a bad October then I expect the changes to come.