San Jose – Another season in which the Sharks of San José have ended at the bottom of the NHL classification, perhaps merciously, came to a conclusion.
The sharks expected to end the year with a positive note. But with their 3-0 defeat against the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday night at the Sap Center, they ended with only 20 wins and 51 points, only marginally better than their totals of a season ago.
Ty Emberson and Max Jones scored for the Oilers, who gave the sharks their eleventh consecutive defeat (0-8-3) to finish the season. The sharks ended with a record of 20-50-12.
Also only marginally better for sharks? The goals against the total, since San José allowed a league sausage 312 goals in 82 games, a figure slightly smaller than the 331 that allowed the last season duration campaign 19-54-9.
If sharks expect to advance next year and this last season, they have the best opportunity to win the NHL Draft lottery, it will begin with how they defend themselves.
One part of that will come from the internal growth of its large picture of younger players. But the help of the main offices of the sharks in that sense would not hurt, since part of the large salary cap space of the team must be used in players (strikers, defenders and goalkeepers, which can help in the amount of goals it allows.
No team among the top 16 in the NHL general classification has allowed more than 240 goals this season.
Naturally, changes are closer, with a handful of players in the alignment of sharks on Wednesday probably playing their last game for the team. That group could include goalkeeper Alexandar Georgiev, defense Jan Rutta and striker Noah Gregor, although those three should only assume so much responsibility.
This was a team effort from beginning to end.
But, hope among sharks is that the sausage is behind them and that the organization can begin to accumulate.
“We are definitely on the right path. We are,” said Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky, Wednesday morning. “I know that our record of victories-fed does not resemble that, but we are on the right path.”
The captain of the Sharks, Logan Couture, who worked on Tuesday that his game days are over, attended Wednesday. The sharks showed a video tribute for Couture, and the exhausted crowd in the Sap Center gave him a well -folded ovation after a race as a 15 -year -old player in the NHL.
Couture, Arguffy, the artist of playoffs more of the clutch in the history of sharks, led the San José playoff team in 2019 with 20 points in 20 games.
Couture said that his two favorite memories as a player were in 2016, when he scored a goal from the empty network in game 6 of the west conference final against St. Louis Blues, sealing the first of the sharks for the final of the Stanley Cup.
In game 7 of the first round playoff series of sharks against Los Vegas Golden Knights in 2019, Couture scored twice in the third period to lead an epic return after San José fell by three goals. The Sharks won the 5-4 game in extra time in a goal from Barclay Goodrow.
“I come back and I saw those games, and you put chicken skin looking at the building, the atmosphere, what these teams were, competitiveness,” Warsofsky said.
“Obviously (Couture) writes that goal, jump to the bank in the biggest game. So I want to experience that. I want to experiment.
“I hope we can get there very, very soon. But I think we are on the right path.”