San Jose are playing historically bad

The Sharks have made an horrendous start to the season (0-10-1) and now hold the record for the worst goal differential (minus-42) in league history through the first 11 games of a season.

Video Transcript

JULIAN MCKENZIE: But did any of us expect the San Jose Sharks to be this bad? Because they are bad.

ARUN SRINIVASAN: I think it's the depths of how bad they are right, like? I think they were close to the near consensus preseason, like last overall team. So I think there was an expectation they'd be bad, but it has been shocking how historically bad they've been. I mean, I don't know if you guys have digged into the stats of where they rank, but just as a baseline, if you are arguably the worst team in the salary cap era right out the gate, it is the first week of November and they don't have a win.

I don't think they have-- I think Auston Matthews has more goals than the San Jose Sharks, at least as of Saturday. Like everything about the Leafs, but just as a contextual stat. It's just like, what is happening? And think it's not really the worst thing for San Jose to be awful, especially given that Bay Area zone, Macklin Celebrini, who was the son of the Golden State Warriors director of sport performance, Rick Celebrini-- the guy who basically rehabbed Klay Thompson's torn ACL. It's his son. It would be a nice story.

But it's also the equivalent of DeAndre Ayton getting taken by the Suns. Like, who really cares? The prospects aren't really that exciting enough to be worthy for a tank. I know Macklin Celebrini and Cole Eiserman have been fun stories, but I mean, last year, I think the entire panel, every time we do a "Zone Time" show, we were sort of frothing waiting for that draft. So the reward isn't really good enough for San Jose to be this bad. They can still be the worst team in the NHL without outright embarrassing themselves. And that's what they've been so far.

OMAR: Yeah, and the thing of the numbers aspect of it is crazy too because they look like they might end up worse than, I guess, the '16-'17 Avalanche team that finished with 48 points. Even that team, they had, I think, three wins in their first 11-- at least two.

Even last year's team, Anaheim-- we talked about how bad Anaheim was last year, but even they had a couple of wins. They have nothing. They only have one point. Like, it's crazy how bad they are. And yeah, sure, don't have Logan Couture right now. I think Barabanov is injured as well. But like, holy, are they bad? Like, back-to-back games with 10 goals against? Man.

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: And Omar, only four teams in league history have allowed 10 goals in back-to-back games. The league's been around over 100 years, and they are the fourth team. They joined 1920 Quebec Bulldogs, the '44 Bruins, and the '65 Bruins as having that happen to them.

ARUN SRINIVASAN: This is the stat we were looking for. Yes, the historical context. Thank you, Avry. Right? Do any of us have visceral memories of those teams, being born after?

JULIAN MCKENZIE: No.

ARUN SRINIVASAN: No, clearly not. We have a new sort of standard bearer for historical awfulness at this point.

OMAR: Man, so that first year, Washington Capitals team that only won eight games. They never lost back-to-back?

JULIAN MCKENZIE: They never did that. That's crazy.

OMAR: That's crazy. That's wild.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Imagine being on that team and then look at the Sharks now, be like, damn, at least we didn't do that.

OMAR: Exactly.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Like, wow. I saw earlier today, in San Jose-- well, it was on Monday. It will be Tuesday when you get this. Instead of David Quinn talking to the media after practice, Mike Greer, the GM, spoke to the media. And one quote going around-- I'm reading this from Sheng Peng, who covers the Sharks for "San Jose Hockey Now", the fans deserve better. The organization deserves better.

Hasso-- I forget his first name, but the owner of the team deserves better. It's not anything I take lightly. He also, apparently, had a team meeting with players today. First time this season they've had a meeting. All I have to say is this-- how much better was it supposed to be with this roster? You knew it was going to be bad. So like when people are like, man, David Quinn should be fired for this. For what?

OMAR: No, for what? What?

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Like, this was going to be bad. This not his fault.

OMAR: Yeah, like, I understand and appreciate the quotes from a fan perspective because those games happened at home, so imagine paying for that? But yeah, as far as the perception. Again, who here had San Jose out of the bottom five?

ARUN SRINIVASAN: I had them dead last.

OMAR: Yeah, exactly, right?

JULIAN MCKENZIE: I think everyone did.

OMAR: Yeah, so we didn't think it'd be this bad. But they're exactly where we expected them to be. And again, I think Arun's point earlier is just it is unfortunate that it's not like last year where we knew who the number-one person is. There was a whole bunch of hype around it.

But this year, I don't know. I haven't been hearing a lot of crazy things. I haven't been reading a lot of, this is going to be a significant, game-changing draft, which sucks. But they have two firsts. They probably try to get more, then maybe they can maybe see what they can salvage from this. But yeah, it's going to look like it's going to be a long season for San Jose, that's for sure.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: It is looking like it.