The San Jose Sharks have been out of the playoffs for three straight seasons and this year isn’t looking too promising, either. The franchise has a new GM in Mike Grier, a new coach in David Quinn and a roster that has held onto some key veterans but is very much in need of young players to step up and fill in the gaps. But the one place the Sharks can’t be beat – other than jersey designs – has been on the penalty-kill.
Perhaps shockingly, for a team that sits seventh in the Pacific Division and has a minus-15 goal differential, San Jose also leads the NHL with a brawny 91.6 percent kill rate while shorthanded. And this season is not an aberration.
Last year the Sharks finished with a minus-50 goal differential, yet boasted the NHL’s second-best penalty-kill. In 2020-21 they were only 14th, but it’s probably no coincidence that ace penalty-killer Matt Nieto also missed about half the campaign due to injury; the year before that, San Jose had the best unit in the league.
“It’s been a strong point for our team the past few years and it’s something all the killers take pride in,” Nieto said. “When we get out there, we know we have a job to do and we’ll do anything to kill off those penalties. It can definitely build momentum for our team when the kill is going.”
And it’s not like the Sharks are angels on the ice: San Jose currently ranks 11th in the NHL in shorthanded time on ice. So the killers are earning their pay.
Perhaps it’s just a matter of the right personnel for the job. Besides Nieto, the Sharks also have excellent two-way center Logan Couture, another solid pivot in Nick Bonino and Swiss army knife Luke Kunin up front. On the back end, Marc-Edouard Vlasic has always been a smart shutdown guy while Matt Benning came over from Nashville as a free agent in the summer and has stepped in seamlessly. In fact, Couture made specific mention of Benning the day after the Sharks blanked Montreal 4-0 this week: The San Jose pre-scout showed that the Habs would try to load up Cole Caufield for a one-timer on the power play, but when they tried it against the Sharks, Benning was there to block the shot and clear the puck out (the injured Mario Ferraro has also been big).
The next night against Toronto, the PK was again perfect, stopping the potent Leafs attack three times (though Toronto won the game 3-1). Aaron Dell was the netminder in that Toronto game, but the Sharks have done it with whoever is in the crease – in fact, that was Dell’s first NHL start in more than 11 months.
And they’ve done it with different coaches over the years. Right now, it’s on assistant coach Ryan Warsofsky, who was head coach of the AHL’s Chicago Wolves last season. Oh, and those Wolves finished fifth in the AHL on the PK.
“I don’t know if it’s the weather or the water in San Jose,” Quinn said. “It doesn’t matter who’s coaching it or who’s on it, it just continues to perform. Ryan has done a really good job of inheriting a very effective PK and it’s hard when you take over because you want to put your touch on it, but you don’t want to screw it up, too. He’s done a really good job and our guys have done a helluva job killing.”
In terms of nuts and bolts, the Sharks killers aren’t going to sit back when they’re out there; it’s an aggressive bunch.
“We’re such a pressure kill,” Nieto said. “We don’t allow power plays to get in their sets and really have time with the puck to make the plays they want. When we’re doing it right, it’s a really hard kill to generate chances against.”
The Sharks still have a lot of building to do before they can get back to the good ol’ days when they were usually one of the best teams in the West. But it seems like they’ll never have to worry about their penalty-kill; It’s just a San Jose thing.
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