5-on-5 Play Continuing to Plague the Sharks, Creating Unsustainable Success

While it's hard to complain about the San Jose Sharks' start looking strictly at their record, they've been relying on their special teams quite a bit to get the wins that they have to this point. While quality special teams are important for a successful team, on their own, they aren't a sustainable way to play considering the majority of each game is played 5-on-5. 

At even strength, the Sharks have been fairly abysmal to this point in the season. They're currently tied for the sixth-fewest goals for during 5-on-5 play and have also surrendered the sixth-most goals at even strength. In fact, the Sharks have scored just 16 goals in 5-on-5 play, but have scored 20 goals in all other situations. That type of production isn't sustainable over an 84-game season and if it's not addressed sooner than later, it could become a serious problem for the Sharks. 

Prior to the Sharks' recently concluded six-game road trip, coach Ryan Warsofsky spoke about what exactly he felt the Sharks needed to do to address that issue: "Just building our chemistry and how we want to break up pucks," he said. "[We need to] play with neutral zone transition speed and putting support on the puck more often than not. So [there are] some areas of improvement that we've got to get to really quickly."

During the Sharks' road trip, although they played better 5-on-5 at times, it still wasn't a consistently improved area of play.

Of course, this issue is prevalent throughout the lineup. Currently, Macklin Celebrini leads the Sharks with even-strength points, despite having just six through the team's first 12 games. Tyler Toffoli, Michael Misa, and Jacob Trouba each have five. Meanwhile, the current fourth-line rotation of Barclay Goodrow, Zack Ostapchuk, Ty Dellandrea, and Adam Gaudette (who gets the benefit of the doubt since he's only played one game) have yet to record a goal during 5-on-5 play. Three of those four players actually have more shorthanded points than they have even strength points. 

We're already 14% of the way through the 2026-27 season and there has been little signs of improvement in the Sharks' level of play at 5-on-5. Even if they're able to coast through the regular season and get into the playoffs like this, how would they succeed in the postseason with 5-on-5 overtime at this rate? Simply put, they likely wouldn't. Warsofsky knows this is an issue and has stated what he feels they need to do to fix it, yet six games later, there haven't been any major steps forward.