Ottawa Senators are ahead of the San Jose Sharks in the standings

As of before the Sharks game versus the Golden Knights, the Ottawa Senators are unbelievably ranked higher than them in the standings!

The Ottawa Senators and San Jose Sharks each have 34 points. They each have 11 regulations wins. However, the Senators have a slightly higher point percentage, so technically, as of Mon. Dec 23, they are higher in the standings than the Sharks.

Remember before last season right after Erik Karlsson got traded to that Sharks, everyone was pitting the Sharks as the possible Stanley Cup favorite? Now just a year and a half later they are struggling to contend for a playoff spot.

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This was supposed to be the Senators “tank” year and the goal was to get a top-five pick and build from there up. But that was meant to be with their own pick, not a contenders pick! Well, the Sharks may very well end up relinquishing a high pick to a rebuilding team.

With a blueline starring big guns Brent Burns, Karlsson, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic to name a few, they should’ve been better than they are right now, right? Well they aren’t, let’s see what went wrong for the bay area hockey club:

They lost Joe Pavelski

Joe Pavelski was a major part of the team for over a decade and was the captain for the last few years. He was a mainstay on the power play and was iconic for his god-given ability to tip pucks into the net regularly.

The lose of the former captain’s leadership in the locker room may also be a factor in their struggles.

They don’t have sufficient goaltending

Their record right now is 16-19-2 and the main reason for that is the absolutely atrocious play of goalies, Martin Jones and Aaron Dell. They have let in the third-most goals per game in the league, with an abysmal 3.49 pucks let in per game.

The rest of the team isn’t doing that bad but ranking 24th in the league in goals is also an issue, which must be solved if they ever want to contend again. GM Doug Wilson was justified giving former coach Pete DeBoer the boot, as the team failed to meet expectations.