No, the San Jose Sharks will not become the first team in NHL history to go 84-0-0. Last night the team, lacking star forward Macklin Celebrini, suffered a crushing 5-0 loss at the hands of the Dallas Stars. The Stars’ performance is not surprising: a hard-hitting, skilled, playoff contending team with something to prove after entering the season 0-2. However, the Sharks’ totally broke down without Celebrini (putting up only 13 shots on goal) and it came in the form of roster mismanagement.
For starters, while it’s not clear why he is out day-to-day and didn’t play last night, Celebrini completely burnt himself out in the previous game against the Los Angeles Kings. The lines have been struggling with offensive output: poor defensive zone breakout, neutral zone carry, and struggling to create opportunities in the offensive zone and keeping the puck in. Celebrini saw this and took matters into his own hands by double shifting himself. This massively backfired with turnovers and overall poor play with clear signs of burnout. After a certain point Head Coach, Ryan Warsofsky, should step in as he had clearly pushed himself too far. He managed to be effective in overtime, but even Macklin Celebrini at 70% is better than most of the league. If you need a single game to point out his Hart-caliber play, though, last night was it with their performance without him.
There are not enough sports psychologists in the world that can explain Warsofsky’s affinity for forward Tyler Dellandrea, who made his season debut last night. Not only filling Celebrini’s place on the 20-man roster, Dellandrea was literally put in his place as the top line center after Alexander Wennberg didn’t work out in the spot. With a WAR stat of -.23, Dellandrea doesn’t have a place on an NHL roster let alone the top line. He is hardly capable of playing above the fourth line, so placing him in the top spot proved disastrous. Winning only 3/11 faceoffs taken, playing him on that top spot was ludicrous.
This decision is made even more ridiculous by the existence of Michael Misa. Misa has shown he greatly deserves top-six opportunities, and last night was the perfect time to give him a chance. Instead he started the game once again, shackled to Tyler Toffoli on the third line. This has been a repeated problem, with Toffoli greatly slowing him down. Toffoli is by far the slowest player on the team and Misa is far too fast and skilled to keep being weighed down by him. Later the long awaited line of Igor Chernyshov, Misa, and Ivar Stenberg made an appearance, but while they were fun they did not manage to score…and they got scored on. The constant underuse of Misa has been frustrating, especially with ample opportunity to use him in the absence of Celebrini. Not using him, or Stenberg, in that top powerplay slot was also a puzzling decision.
With the exception of Luca Cagnoni having some fantastic recoveries, defense once again hung Yaroslav Askarov out to dry. The majority of Dallas’ 26 shots were from high-danger areas, especially close to Askarov. This onslaught of Stars against Askarov was hard to watch, and for the sake of his confidence and mental health he should’ve been pulled going into the third. Unfortunately, the brutal attack continued and Askarov had to endure. Particularly bad on defense was Sam Dickinson, who was directly responsible for Dallas’ fourth goal by turning the puck right over to them. It wouldn’t be surprising if he was a healthy scratch in the next game, but even that’s a form of mismanagement. Now that he’s eligible, it’s time to send him down to the AHL so he can develop his skills and decision making, which aren’t quite there yet.
This roster has all the potential for massive success, but they aren’t being used in the right ways. With so much talent in the forward group, production shouldn't come this difficultly. Even when Macklin Celebrini goes down, there is enough talent on this team that should be able to support that loss. There can't be such a heavy reliance on Celebrini for success, although he is important, there needs to be a better understanding of line dynamics to take the organization to that next level.
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