As part of a running series, Puck Prose will now take a look at the San Jose Sharks through the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs. How did a Cup favorite wind up out of the playoffs in the first round?
The Sharks lost four games against the young upstart Edmonton Oilers. Just a year after taking a run at the Stanley Cup, making it all the way to the Final, the Sharks exited the 2017 Stanley Cup playoffs early. How did they go wrong?
Offensive Production
The San Jose Sharks scored fourteen goals. Exactly half came in game 4, where the San Jose Sharks massively overwhelmed the Edmonton Oilers seven goals to zero. Too bad they couldn’t do that the rest of the time, as the Sharks themselves were shutout twice.
When that happens, and the best of the Sharks aren’t scoring, that’s not good. In the playoffs last year, Joe Thornton had 3 goals and 18 assists. Brent Burns had 7 goals and 17 assists. Tomas Hertl had 6 goals and 5 assists.
This year, Joe Thornton had just 2 assists. Burns had 3, and Hertl also had 2. The lack of scoring from players who were previous contributors hurt the Sharks desperately. They didn’t have the production to make up for it from their depth players, and so they were left on the outside looking in this year.
Get Younger
And part of that is age. Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau are 37. Joel Ward is 36. Joe Pavelski is now 32. On defense, the situation is not much better. Paul Martin is 36. Brent Burns is 32. Of the Sharks’ consistent six defensive starters, none is below the age of 25.
The youngest Shark forward is Chris Tierney, the fourth line center, who is 22. The Sharks need to get younger, to get faster, to improve their offense. There will be a temptation to bring back Marleau, who spent his whole career with the Sharks. There will be a temptation to bring back Joe Thornton, who won a Hart with the Sharks. Don’t do it.
It’s about time the aging Sharks got younger. There should have been success never came to fruition, and they were overwhelmed by faster teams like the Chicago Blackhawks and the Pittsburgh Penguins when they got close.
Defensive Toughness
The other thing that hurt the Sharks was this: they couldn’t get the Oilers out of the paint. The Oilers were able to play in front of Martin Jones the whole series, and while he looked great, it hurt the Oilers.
The Sharks were just never able to clear their crease, and Oilers like Zack Kassian and David Desharnais took advantage. The players that were supposed to be dangerous against the Sharks (Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid) were blocked while the grinders succeeded.
The Oilers stumbled across a new way to win. And that’s again because of the age of the Sharks defense. But it’s also because they weren’t pushing the Oilers around. They didn’t make big hits – they were outhit in all but one game.
Again, the defense’s inabilities in this series allowed the Oilers to exploit Martin Jones’s biggest weakness. And that ended up being the final nail in the coffin. Without offensive production in all but one game, the defense and Jones giving up goals weren’t helping.
Martin Jones’s Five-Hole
Yeah. A number of goals that Martin Jones let in through his legs in this series are unreal. In the series, he went with a .935 SV% and a 1.75 GAA in this series. He got a shutout. The problem is, that .065% went right through his legs, and the Sharks didn’t make up for it on the other end.
It all starts here:
As you can see, Oscar Klefbom, a defenseman with just 12 goals on the regular season, scored in game one in the first period. And he does it through the five hole. Right below Jones, where goalies are taught to cover up. And he sinks the puck in.
Next: Toronto's Playoff Issues
And Jones’s weak spot never improved. He’s going to need to work on it in the offseason, but when he comes back next year this could be a whole different looking team. Jones’s five-hole has helped ensure that.
This could have been a longer article, but the Sharks’ weaknesses were glaring. There’s a lot of old men on this team. That’s gotta change, hopefully, sooner rather than later.