San Jose Sharks hope to remain competitive while the NHL trade deadline is looming

San Jose – San Jose Sharks are too used to getting out of the photo of the playoffs at this stage of the season and have probably been guilty in recent years to just want to play the rope.

While the sharks of the last place are in the same situation this season with two remaining months and the deadline for the NHL trade at the corner of the street, this lukewarm type of attitude – taking into account the state of their reconstruction And young players on the list – is now something that they desperately want to avoid.

“We have 25 games to really push and be competitive,” said Sharks Ryan Warsofsky Sharks on Tuesday. “I thought there have been, in the past two years, you just try to spend the matches and spend at the end of the season. We will try to compete.

History suggests that this will be a challenge, in particular with the Sharks (15-35-7) which should unload more bodies before the deadline for trade on March 7 during the last two seasons, the Sharks, after each date Commerce limit, had a combined record of 8-25-6.

Each year, the Sharks have endured a sequence of nine consecutive defeats and lost nine games by three or more goals.

Although there is no guarantee that the record of Sharks decreases the section will be better this season, they want to avoid unbalanced losses of morale develop recruits Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith, Shakir Mukhamadullin, Collin Graf and D ‘ Other players from the Z generation like William Eklund and Henry Thrun.

Warsofsky said that the list “would probably become younger as we are going to go here throughout the week and the next two weeks, because the deadline goes back and forth, and I’m sure we want to see guys who are (in Lah) with the (Barracuda) before making their minds in their race in the playoffs.

“So there will be mistakes. There will be washer errors. There will be systematic errors. As coach staff, we will continue to teach and train them and push winning habits and foundation habits. So when we enter next year, (we can) hit the soil running. »»

With the NHL on break to hold the confrontation of the 4 nations, the training of the Sharks marked the first time that they were together in team since their defeat of 8-3 against the stars of Dallas on February 8. The loss was the 10th of Sharks in their last 11 games because they fell in the 32nd and last place in the general NHL classification.

The break was desperately necessary – physically and mentally – because the Sharks won only five of the 27 games since the Mackenzie Blackwood goalkeeper exchange at the Colorado avalanche on December 9.

“It was great,” said Celebrini. “It took advantage of me, that’s for sure. I feel like it helps get some time to update after the first half of the year. »»

Sharks should train every day this week before leaving on Saturday for a seven game road trip, which begins with matches in Calgary on Sunday and Winnipeg on Monday.

Tuesday morning, Warsofsky met the leadership group of the Sharks and expressed its expectations for the last two months of the season.

“We are not here to play. We want to try to improve every day, “said Sharks winger Tyler Toffoli. “We said it all year round. We just have to put our coherent game and it starts with practice. »»

The Sharks welcomed the injured veterans centers Alexander Wennberg and Nico Sturm to train on Tuesday. Sturm, on the reserve injured since January 22, has missed eight consecutive games with a lower body disease, and Wennberg has missed four consecutive games with a high body problem. The two were full-fledged participants in training on Tuesday and, according to Warsofskky, are on the right track to play this weekend.

Wennberg and Sturm, who have combined 34 points this season, will not solve all the problems of the Sharks, but should help ensure a certain stability for a team of legs which has just exchanged the top scorer Mikael Granlund and the high -level defender Cody this.

In Tuesday training, Wennberg focused the second line with Fabian Zetterlund and Will Smith on the wings, and Sturm, a pending UFA that could be in motion before the deadline, focused the third line with the wingers Luke Kunin and Collin Graf.

“Many things have happened, really the blackwood would exchange,” said Warsofsky. “You exchange our goalkeeper, then you lose (Granlund and this), not just good players, but good people, and that affects you. We were a little struck in the intestine there a little, and that affected our game.

“Even if we sometimes contributed, the matches sometimes moved away from us. And now we have to reset. These guys have evolved; We also have to move on. This is the company in which we are.