Sharks Locker Room: It’s Midnight, Cinderella

TL;DR

The San Jose Sharks have had a disappointing end to their season, suffering three consecutive must-win losses. They were outscored 11-3 in their last two games against the Edmonton Oilers and Anaheim Ducks, managing fewer than 20 shots in each match.

Apr 11, 2026; San Jose, CA, USA; during San Jose Sharks vs Vancouver Canucks at SAP Center. Photo: Sport Shots / Dean Tait

The San Jose Sharks should be proud of their season.

They should not be proud of how they’ve played in their last three losses, all must-win’s.

On Wednesday and Thursday, they were smoked by a combined 11-3 by the Edmonton Oilers and Anaheim Ducks, failing to muster more than 20 shots in each game.

On Saturday, they allowed the worst team in the NHL, the Vancouver Canucks, to outshoot them 41-31, en route to a 4-3 shootout loss. This was just the second time this season that the 23-48-8 Canucks have eclipsed 40 shots in a game.

“Tonight was especially poor in our D-zone,” Warsofsky said.

The last three defeats, it’s not that the San Jose Sharks lost, it’s how they lost, and in the biggest games of the season.

They did not, at the heart of it, match the desperation of their opponents.

Beyond that, they were careless with the puck. They did not start on time. They were not simple when they needed to be. They did not have a shot mentality. They defended atrociously. They did not look confident.

It was a twist ending to a delightful season, like ending “Ratatouille” with Remy caught in a rat trap.

What happened is for GM Mike Grier and Warsofsky to exhume, and something we’ll discuss plenty in the off-season.

For now, the San Jose Sharks have basically eliminated themselves from the playoff race. They’re five points back of the last wild card spot in the West, held by the Los Angeles Kings, three games left, no games in hand on LA, three teams to leapfrog.

Strictly speaking of Los Angeles, and not the other teams ahead of San Jose, the Nashville Predators and Winnipeg Jets, the Sharks will need the Kings to lose out, at least twice in regulation and once in OT/shootout, or worse, and they’ll need to win out to pass LA.

That’s obviously improbable, considering that the Kings close their regular season campaign at the Seattle Kraken, Vancouver, and Calgary Flames, all teams out of the playoffs.

The Sharks, hopefully, will carry the sting from this humiliating string of losses into the off-season and come out the better for it next season. That’s certainly possible, with their uber-talented young core.

“Our whole group’s motivated,” franchise star Macklin Celebrini said of a sooner-than-hoped off-season.