‘We’ve got to figure it out for our mental health.’ How much more misery can the San Jose Sharks take?

Credit: © Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports

It’s one thing to see an NHL player wear a hangdog expression after an opposing-team goal. It’s another to see the happiest face in hockey contorted into an anguished frown.

That was Tomas Hertl after his San Jose Sharks allowed the third of seven Toronto Maple Leaf goals Tuesday night during San Jose’s 12^th consecutive loss. Since they also had a historically awful start to their campaign, they now have two losing streaks of 11 or more games this season. Their 9-29-3 record yields a .256 points percentage which, if it holds, will be the lowest mark of any team since the 1999-00 Atlanta Thrashers. Not even Hertl, known for his ear-to-ear grin, tendency to get the giggles and all-around infectious joy for playing the game, could hide his despair. As he told Daily Faceoff after the defeat, he understands how his mood rubs off on teammates, how they respond when they see him in a sunny mood before a game, but it’s hard to stay positive when the losses simply won’t stop.

Sharks coach David Quinn greeted reporters Tuesday night with the glassy-eyed stare of someone who’d just put down a family pet. He called Tuesday’s humiliating 7-1 defeat San Jose’s worst of the year, which is really saying something for a team that has surrendered 10 goals on two separate occasions in 2023-24.

So what can the Sharks do to climb out of this hole? It feels like a wasted exercise to touch on the X’s and O’s, the four-plus goals surrendered per game, the league-worst power play. Sure, as Quinn pointed out, the team had a strong 20-game stretch between losing streaks, but there’s no curing what ails the 2024-25 Sharks. It feels empty, almost cruel, asking them what they can do better at this point.

“The losing’s hard, I don’t care what anyone tells you,” Quinn said. “Guys can stand in front of this camera and the microphone, everybody can ask questions and you want answers, and I get it, everybody’s got a job to do. But boy, is losin’ effin’ hard…Unless you’ve gone through it, it’s really difficult to explain to anybody. It really is. When you effin’ lose, it’s hard. It wears on you day and night, 24/7, and you’ve got to ask the questions you do, but it’s hard. It takes a special mindset to get out of what we’re in, and we’re gonna get out of it. “

The mindset is the more imperative area to focus on than the hockey itself. There’s no rescuing the season. The question now is whether this group, which includes 10 unrestricted free agents, can rescue their morale. This season is been an absolute nightmare for the Sharks, yet it’s not even half over. How do the players avoid letting this experience scar them and crush their confidence? Defenseman Mario Ferraro wearily admitted Tuesday that the Sharks play nervously if they’re in a (rare) close game. The self-belief has bottomed out.

“I don’t know if we’ve got to figure each other out, do something away from the rink to stay positive and do it for our mental health, too, because obviously this is not easy, going through this,” he said. “It starts off the ice with our mentality, feeling good, and we’ve got to figure out a way to do that for each other.”

Ferraro referenced three separate times the need for the Sharks to figure things out “off the ice.” The implication there may be that chemistry hasn’t come easily for this group. It makes sense given GM Mike Grier added pretty much a new team over the summer, including goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood, forwards Anthony Duclair, Mike Hoffman, Filip Zadina and Mikael Granlund, defensemen Jan Rutta and Kyle Burroughs and more. It’s tough to feel like a team when so many guys are playing together for the first time and are on one-year deals, perhaps waiting for a contender to throw them a life preserver and trade for them in the coming weeks. And as Quinn put it, “When you win, you become closer in a hurry.”

So how do the Sharks save their seemingly damned hockey souls this season? The answer probably matters more for the players signed for next season and beyond. That group includes Ferraro, Granlund, injured captain Logan Couture and, most notably, Hertl, who has six years left on his eight-year, $65.1 million extension after this one. Half this team wasn’t in the Bay Area last year and won’t be next year, but a Sharks lifer like Hertl has to find some semblance of peace in this misery. For what it’s worth, he believes in a potential way out.

“You have to forget what happened and just have fun and enjoy it, you know?” He said. “And play hard and play hockey. Sometimes it’s the best way…I know when you struggle in the NHL, you try every game so hard, and it goes the other way. So we have to cool down and relax a little bit.”

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‘We’ve got to figure it out for our mental health.’ How much more misery can the San Jose Sharks take?

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