The San Jose Sharks are now on a three-game win streak, following a series sweep over the Anaheim Ducks this week.
San Jose went into the series coming off an overtime win against the St. Louis Blues but were struggling overall. Tomas Hertl returned in the first game on Friday, which the Sharks won by a score of 6-0, exploding in the third period with four goals and chasing John Gibson. San Jose swept the series yesterday with a 3-1 victory.
As a result, the Sharks have climbed back to .500, holding an 11-11-3 record. Despite the wins, however, there’s no hiding the lack of direction for the Sharks right now. They’re quite a ways back from catching any of the top four teams in the division and will face the Vegas Golden Knights in their next series. Erik Karlsson made comments yesterday that he doesn’t want to be part of a rebuild but at this point, I’m not really sure that’s avoidable.
The issue is that the Sharks have a good enough team that they probably won’t be getting a high draft pick but are also nowhere near a playoff spot. They don’t have the cap space to add but don’t really have a ton of players to sell off for future assets either. The Sharks are a team with no real direction.
I think it’s likely that the Sharks do make some moves ahead of the deadline but their only real trade chips are Tomas Hertl and Timo Meier. Hertl could be a possible candidate to be moved but does it make sense to move Meier at 24 years old, when he’s locked in at a reasonable price for two more years and will still be a restricted free agent when his contract expires?
The Sharks will have some decisions to make in the near future. There are still 31 games to go but unless they can manage to string together quite a few more wins, they’ll likely remain stuck in No-Man’s Land.
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Should the Sharks be open to moving Tomas Hertl at the trade deadline?
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