Why can’t the San Jose Sharks have nice things?
While the year 2020 has felt like one long prison sentence, it actually wasn’t that long ago that the San Jose Sharks were in the Stanley Cup Final. It was 2016 to be precise, where they lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games.
That was meant to just be the start of things for a talented Sharks team, however, a roster that was spearheaded by franchise icons Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski and Brent Burns.
However, that Finals appearance in 2016 proved to be the top of the mountain for San Jose who have been on a rapid decline ever since.
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Despite reaching the Western Conference Finals in 2018-19, the Sharks missed the expanded postseason format last season and could now be on the cusp of a rebuild.
Rebuild? Seriously? Yes, I think we have reached that point where this current era of San Jose Sharks is coming to a very disappointing and anti-climatic end.
The writing was on the wall throughout the duration of the 2019-20 season, and some seismic sea changes during the offseason have only served to hammer home the point that the Sharks could be kissing goodbye to their win-now window.
Just a year removed from losing Captain Joe Pavelski in Free Agency to the Dallas Stars, San Jose lost their heartbeat and their soul in Joe Thornton, who felt that he had a better chance to win an elusive Stanley Cup with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Thornton’s decision to go championship hunting in Canada not only signified the end of an iconic era in franchise history for the Sharks, but it also shone the spotlight on their distinct failure to win and strike while the iron was hot.
After all, this team was standing on the precipice of glory for a long, long time and, after coming so close in 2016, General Manager Doug Wilson decided to leverage his organization’s future by going all out to trade for elite defenseman Erik Karlsson, sending a bounty of picks and players to the Ottawa Senators.
Wilson then signed Karlsson to a blockbuster eight-year, $92,000,000 contract, despite already being committed to paying Brent Burns $8 million per year through the 2024-25 season and Marc-Edouard Vlasic $7 million a year through 2025-26.
With so much money tied up in just three defensemen – over 30% of San Jose’s cap to be precise – the Sharks severely hindered themselves on the salary cap front and, as a direct result, the overall quality of their roster was dealt a crushing blow.
And, while Karlsson has been good for the Sharks over the span of two years, he isn’t the same player that left jaws on the ground and had people drooling over his ability to change a game in an instant while with the Ottawa Senators.
Far from it, in fact.
With less than 50 points in each of his two seasons with San Jose, his lowest totals since 2014-15, Karlsson isn’t the offensive juggernaut he once was and his power play expertise has waned somewhat too.
With 68 Giveaways, just 26 hits and a plus/minus rating of -15 in 2019-20, Karlsson is almost a shadow of his former self and it hasn’t helped that the six-time All-Star and two-time Norris Trophy winner literally plays on one leg, although a one-legged Erik Karlsson is still quite the asset.
But, committed to Karlsson for another seven years, the Sharks are now in salary cap hell and it is starting to become abundantly clear that the bill for their life of luxury is now due.
Pavelski walked because of San Jose’s lack of cap flexibility and, with over $30 million invested in the defense alone over the next couple of seasons, there isn’t much scope to inject some much-needed firepower into a stagnant offense.
Evander Kane, Tomas Hertl and Logan Couture are nice players but they aren’t what you would call superstars in the modern NHL, while the rest of the forward unit leaves a lot to be desired and the decision to pay Kevin Labanc just under $5 million per year through the 2023-24 season was another surefire sign of this front office overpaying at the worst possible time.
There are still serious question marks between the pipes with the offseason trade for Devan Dubnyk hardly upgrading a goalie tandem that also features Martin Jones, who had a .896 Save Percentage and a 3.00 Goals Against Average in 39 regular season starts in 2019-20.
With very little cap space to fix the holes and address the major bugaboos on this roster, the Sharks are destined to be a punching bag for most teams in what is an ever-increasing elite Western Conference.
And it all could have been so different.
But, having gone through the hall of horrors that all NHL teams travel through at some point – draft busts, trade and free agency snafus, injuries and ill-timed and cruel twists of fate – the San Jose Sharks are falling apart at the seams right in front of our very eyes.
This group cracked under the pressure of being supposed contenders and they blew chance after chance to win a championship that would have vindicated all of the aggressive moves made by the front office.
However, with the last real vestige of that championship-worthy core now gone in Joe Thornton, the Sharks may have to accept their fate and rebuild around an aging Brent Burns and a hindered and compromised Erik Karlsson, who already threatens to stifle and significantly impact the immediate future of this franchise with his albatross of a contract and his badly beaten and battered body.
Once one of the most exciting teams in the National Hockey League, the San Jose Sharks are now a pathetic shadow of their former selves and their best years may be behind them as they prepare to pay the bill for years of chasing a Stanley Cup that never quite arrived.