NHL 2024-25 Season Preview: San Jose Sharks
We’re officially less than a month away from the return of NHL hockey with the first slate of preseason games scheduled to drop the puck on September 27th. As teams return to the ice for training camp after a long summer break, the time for season predictions and club analysis has begun. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be previewing each NHL club and examining how their 2024-25 season will turn out. This series begins with the worst club in the NHL - the San Jose Sharks.
2023-24 Recap
The Sharks have been a tough watch over the last few seasons but the club hit new lows last year after they traded away 2023 Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson to Pittsburgh before the 2023-24 campaign. To say the Sharks were a worse team without him, even though, they weren’t much better with him, was an understatement. On top of that, the Sharks lost star forward Logan Couture to a pelvic injury, which he suffered six games into the season. The writing was pretty much on the wall for the type of season the Sharks were about the endure.
San Jose’s stumble to a 19-54-9 record for 47 points was an atrocity that included going winless in October, suffering two losing streaks of 10 games or more, and winning a combined five games within the last three months of the season. The Sharks boasted one of the worst offenses that finished at the bottom of the NHL standings, averaging just 2.20 goals per game, which ranked 31st. The only bright spot was that their power play wasn’t too terrible, finishing with a 20.2% success rate which finished 21st in the league. Defensively, the Sharks struggled to keep pucks out of their net. Unfortunately, the dynamic duo of Mackenzie Blackwood and Kaapo Kähkönen provided the perfect recipe between the pipes for San Jose to average 3.98 goals per game, which ranked dead last in goals allowed.
Offseason
Following the conclusion of a fifth consecutive losing season, it’s safe to say the rebuild has officially begun in San Jose. However, the Sharks showed reason for optimism with a busy offseason that acquired a haul of talent to the bay. For starters, the Sharks will begin the 2024-25 season under a new head coaching regime. San Jose relieved David Quinn of his head coaching duties after just two seasons and replaced him with one of his assistants Ryan Warsofsky. Warsofsky will be a first-time head coach at the NHL level but does carry some head coaching experience from his time in the minors as a member of the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays and AHL’s Charlotte Checkers.
The top move of the Sharks’ summer was drafting top prospect Macklin Celebrini first overall. The 17-year-old from Boston University was the youngest recipient of the Hobey Baker Memorial Award last year and has always taken the spotlight during his time in college. The other big addition from the 2024 NHL Draft was Will Smith, who seems like a promising prospect as he prepares for his first NHL training camp this year. It may take some time for both youngsters to find their game at the NHL level, but they are ready to make an impact early in their pro careers.
The Sharks’ top additions in free agency include signing forward Tyler Toffoli to a four-year, $24 million contract and snagging forward Alex Wennberg with a two-year, $10 million deal. San Jose also picked forward Barclay Goodrow up off waivers. At goaltender, San Jose acquired Vítek Vaněček via trade with the New Jersey Devils to team up with Blackwood this season. Most recently, the Sharks picked up Yaroslav Askarov from the Nashville Predators. Askarov is a 25-year-old goaltender who carried a 30-13-1 record with a .911 save percentage last year in the AHL.
The trade also included the Sharks getting a 2025 third-round pick and 21-year-old goalie Nolan Burke, who carries a 47-5-10-15 record in the ECHL. The Preds got the Sharks’ 2025 conditional first-round pick they originally got from the Las Vegas Golden Knights, minor league forward David Edstrom, and goalie prospect Magnus Chrona, who appeared in eight games last year for San Jose, finishing with a 1-6-1 record. Despite the Sharks acquiring Askarov from the Predators, he is unlikely to start right away for San Jose. However, he does give the Sharks a brighter future at goaltender as he continues to develop.
Bottomline
Getting Logan Couture back at full strength will be huge this season. Although he’ll be 35 this season and heading towards the back nine of his career, Couture is still the captain and the heart and soul of this organization. If he can stay healthy, the hope is the savvy veteran will also serve as a mentor for the young prospects. Factor in the haul of seasoned veterans like Toffoli, Wennberg, and Goodrow, and combine them with the Sharks’ leading point scorer Mikael Granlund, and top goal scorer Fabian Zetterlund, and there’s reason for optimism.
Unfortunately, there are still several question marks past the second line and this will be the year players will be competing for jobs. Overall, the determining factor of how much success, or lack thereof, the Sharks have in 2024-25 will hinder how plentiful the top two lines will be in the scoring department and whether the defense can create turnovers and keep the puck out of their end. It’s hard to imagine San Jose winning less than 20 games after all the moves they’ve made this summer. However, it might be a while before the Sharks return to being relevant as they move forward with their rebuild.
