Plenty of Teeth, Not Nearly Enough Goals for San Jose

     San Jose's attack has developed an inconvenient habit: whenever the Sharks seem ready to make a move, the puck stays out and the other team finds the net. For a franchise that spent last season making its rebuilding project look increasingly believable, the early numbers are difficult to dismiss. Through 17 games, San Jose sat at 7-9-1 with 15 points, sixth in the Pacific Division. Its 43 goals amounted to 2.53 per game, 28th in the NHL, while 60 goals against worked out to 3.53 per contest. Those figures are not just a scoring slump. They describe a team that has struggled at both ends of the rink.

The warning signs were already visible when The Hockey News raised the offensive question on November 3. San Jose had scored five goals in four games, a stretch that included a 2-0 loss to Buffalo, a 3-2 victory over Vancouver, a 5-1 defeat against Ottawa and a 2-1 loss to Calgary. The Calgary game at SAP Center offered a particularly frustrating example. The Sharks outshot the Flames 27-22, Tyler Toffoli and defenseman Jacob Trouba each put six shots on goal, and Calgary goaltender Dustin Wolf still stopped 26 attempts. Rookie defenseman Sam Dickinson finally broke through with 8:03 remaining, but San Jose never found an equalizer. Ryan Warsofsky acknowledged afterward that his team was struggling to create scoring opportunities.

Then came November 4 in Los Angeles, when the problem grew bigger than missed chances. The Kings routed San Jose 7-2 at Crypto.com Arena despite being outshot 32-27. Adrian Kempe scored three times, Quinton Byfield added two goals and Artemi Panarin collected four assists. Macklin Celebrini and Ivar Stenberg supplied the Sharks' goals, both on the power play. San Jose went 2-for-6 with the extra skater, but produced nothing at even strength. The defeat was its fifth in six games and prompted a players-only meeting. Forward Kiefer Sherwood called the performance unacceptable, while Celebrini said the team needed to figure out what was going wrong.

Celebrini is hardly a passenger in this story. After scoring 45 goals and totaling 115 points last season, the young captain had six goals and 11 assists through 15 appearances this year. But before scoring against the Kings, he had endured a six-game goal drought, collecting only two assists during that run. Will Smith had six goals and four assists through 17 games. Stenberg, the second overall pick in the 2026 draft, had four goals and six assists in his first 17 NHL appearances, and Michael Misa had three goals and seven assists. Those are encouraging individual contributions from a young group, not proof that the team has enough consistent scoring throughout its lineup.

The offseason also changed the arithmetic. William Eklund, who supplied 15 goals and 38 assists last season, went to Ottawa in a June trade that brought San Jose the ninth pick in the draft. The Sharks signed veteran winger Mason Marchment and added defensemen Jacob Trouba and Darnell Nurse, moves intended to improve the supporting cast. Marchment had four goals and two assists after 17 games, while Trouba had accumulated 10 points from the blue line. Center Alexander Wennberg, a 55-point producer last season, remained out with an upper-body injury at the start of November. Losing a proven playmaker and missing another leaves more offensive responsibility on the youngest forwards.

The biggest evidence of a deeper issue comes when both teams skate five against five. San Jose had been outscored 38-20 in that situation through 17 games. Its shooting percentage at five-on-five was only 5.6 percent, compared with a league average near 8.9 percent. That suggests some shots will eventually start finding the net. But the Sharks had also generated 103 high-danger chances while surrendering 159, a gap too large to explain through bad luck alone. The team needs to move through the neutral zone with more support, establish itself near the opposing crease and avoid turning its defensemen into spectators when the rush develops.

There is a reason the urgency has risen. San Jose finished 39-35-8 last season, collecting 86 points and ending four points shy of the Western Conference's final playoff position. That progress raised expectations, even with so many young players still learning the NHL. The Sharks now face consecutive road games against Minnesota and Dallas before returning home to play the New York Islanders on November 9. They do not need Celebrini to score every night, but they do need scoring that survives when he does not. A powerful young core can provide the future. To compete for a playoff spot now, San Jose has to produce more at even strength and give its goaltenders considerably more help.