SAN JOSE – The San Jose Sharks were initially planning to go without a practice on Thursday morning before boarding their charter flight to Dallas.
Those plans changed in a hurry after the Sharks suffered their worst loss on home ice in just over two years.
“It’s not like we deserved to have a day off,” Sharks winger Tyler Toffoli said after Thursday’s skate.
Looking to build on their three-goal win over the Utah Mammoth two days earlier, the Sharks reverted to some bad habits in an ugly 7-1 loss to Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals at SAP Center on Wednesday night.
Little went right for the Sharks as they didn’t take care of the puck, lost 50/50 battles, repeatedly got lost in the defensive zone, and after they fell behind, started cheating for offense.
That was just in the first period, when the Capitals scored four times and never looked back, handing the Sharks their most lopsided loss at home since Nov. 4, 2023, when they were pounded 10-2 by the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Sharks thought those types of games were in the rear-view mirror for good as they began their climb out of a deep rebuild this season.
But when their details are not where they need to be against an elite opponent – like the Dallas Stars team they’ll face on Friday night – the Sharks are still plenty capable of stinking up the joint.
Warsofsky said the fact that the Sharks’ compete level can waver from game to game is “extremely frustrating. Drives me nuts.”
“I’m not really concerned about the results,” Warsofsky said. “I’m concerned about how we have to play as a group, and the process that we need to play with consistently, and how we need to compete.
“They’re working hard. They care. But there’s a difference between working hard and competing. There’s a difference of going into a puck battle and winning the puck battle, playing with details and good habits. That’s important. There’s going to be mistakes. Mistakes are going to happen, but they can’t be for a lack of compete.”
Warsofsky made a couple of tweaks to his forward lines and defense pairs for Thursday’s practice, notably moving Philipp Kurashev to the second line with Alexander Wennberg and William Eklund, and dropping Adam Gaudette to the fourth line with Zack Ostapchuk and Barclay Goodrow.
Washington Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin (8) hugs Washington Capitals goaltender Charlie Lindgren (79) after their 7-1 win over the San Jose Sharks at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
In Thursday’s practice, the Sharks’ top two defense pairs were the same as Wednesday’s game, with Dmitry Orlov and Timothy Liljegren, and John Klingberg and Mario Ferraro, back together.
Warsofsky, though, cautioned not to read too much into the lines and defense pairs, saying there will be changes for Friday’s game.
Asked if those changes could include scratching Klingberg, whose turnover on a first-period power play led to Brandon Duhaime’s shorthanded goal that gave the Capitals a 4-0 lead at the 17:07 mark, Warsofsky said a decision hasn’t been finalized.
Klingberg took a pass from Macklin Celebrini inside the Capitals’ blue line, and hesitated for a moment before Duhaime got on top of him and knocked the puck off his stick and into the neutral zone.
There, Aliaksei Protas picked up the loose puck, skated into the Sharks zone, and fed a backwards pass past Klingberg onto the stick of Duhaime for an easy goal past Yaroslav Askarov.
Warsofsky called it a momentum-changing play, as the Sharks could have cut the Capitals’ lead to two going into the second period. Instead, the sequence was the death knell.
“That should never happen. That’s a bad mistake,” Klingberg said. “(Duhaime) was kind of right on me, so what I should have done is just put it right down the wall. But that’s not the first thing that you want to do on a power play, just throw a blind pass down the wall. You want to make a play with it. But I have to realize that I don’t have enough time and space.”
Following Thursday’s practice, Warsofsky spoke to the group at center ice – not barking, but mixing in a few expletives, nevertheless – about the expectations going forward.
San Jose Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky keeps an eye on the game against the Washington Capitals in the second period at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
After Friday’s game in Dallas, the Sharks’ five-game road trip continues with stops in Carolina, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Pittsburgh. The Sharks have worked hard to put themselves near the playoff cutline, but things can go off the rails quickly if their details are off like they were on Wednesday.
And practices like Thursdays are the result.
“I don’t think any of us wanted to really be here today, in a sense,” Warsofsky said. “We all wanted to get on the plane and get to Dallas. Trainers or equipment staff, that’s hard for them. But when you don’t compete, and we get shelled 7-1 at home, that’s not how this is going to work.”
SKINNER BACK
Winger Jeff Skinner, injured on Nov. 13 during a game against the Calgary Flames, is set to return to the Sharks lineup on Friday. Skinner, with seven points in 17 games this season, skated on a line with Ty Dellandrea and Collin Graf on Thursday.
Starting with that game in Calgary, a 2-0 Flames win, the Sharks have a 5-6-0 record.
“Look around the league, I don’t think more than a handful of teams are rattling off 10 in a row. That’s just the way it is,” Skinner said. “Obviously, (Thursday’s) game wasn’t what we wanted, but we’re not going to dwell on it.”
With Skinner returning, the Sharks, already at 23 players, assigned winger Pavol Regenda to the Barracuda. Regenda scored power play goals in each of his first two games as a Shark, including one Thursday at the 12:58 mark of the third period.
“Reggie was good,” Warsofsky said. “He scores two goals by going to the net. We need more of that.”