Can the San Jose Sharks trust Alex Nedeljkovic down the stretch?

We’re about to find out.

It looks like Nedeljkovic’s net to lose, until the injured Yaroslav Askarov returns from a day-to-day lower-body injury.

Laurent Brossoit, the Sharks’ current back-up, does have loads of NHL experience, but because of injuries, he’s played just one game at the highest level over the last two years, a 7-4 loss at the Ottawa Senators on Mar. 15.

Meanwhile, Nedeljkovic hasn’t been razor-sharp in his last two starts, including Thursday’s 5-0 loss to the Buffalo Sabres. He’s given up 10 goals on 48 shots in these defeats.

But before this, from Jan. 6 to Mar. 14, Nedeljkovic was a sterling 8-1-1 with a .924 Save %. In comparison, Askarov was 4-7-2 with an .868 Save %.

The San Jose Sharks need somebody, anybody to help lead them to the playoffs, why not Nedeljkovic?

The Sharks, despite losing six of their last eight, are still just one point out of the last wild card spot in the West. There are just 15 games left in the campaign, in a much weaker-than-usual conference, if literally anybody on the roster gets red-hot, that might be enough to drag San Jose into the post-season.

And Nedeljkovic has gotten hot like this before.

As a 25-year-old rookie with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2020-21, he finished third in Calder Trophy voting, going 15-5-3 with a .932 Save %. Beginning the campaign as the Canes’ taxi squad goalie, he started 23 of his team’s last 47 contests, highlighted by a March-April where he went 11-2-2 with a .937 Save %.

Nedeljkovic also acquitted himself well in the playoffs, going 4-5 with a .920 Save %.

Carolina, after that brilliant debut, traded him to the Detroit Red Wings though. He was anointed starter there.

Nedeljkovic, however, couldn’t keep the job, and after 2021-22, has gone from the Motor City to the Pittsburgh Penguins to Silicon Valley as more of a 1B goalie than a bona fide starter. Even in San Jose, although he’s outperformed Askarov this season, the 23-year-old Russian is still regarded as the goalie of the future for the Sharks.

Nedeljkovic has continued to have strong stretches of play though, like his recent 8-1-1 run with San Jose: In Dec. 2024, for example, he went 4-0-2 with a .915 Save % for the Pens.

Just one more streak like this from Nedeljkovic (or Askarov or Brossoit) could be enough to punch the Sharks’ ticket for the post-season.

San Jose closes March with five contests, no back-to-back’s. Could Nedeljkovic get every start? Will Brossoit spell him? Or will Askarov return to save the day?

Barring a quick Askarov return, however, this could be Nedeljkovic’s chance to change the narrative of his career.

Ryan Warsofsky

Warsofsky on Smith: “He was a lot better tonight.”

— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) March 20, 2026

Alex Nedeljkovic

Nedeljkovic, on Tage Thompson goal that made it 4-0 early in the third:

They won a battle on the blueline there and come down 2-on-1. He’s one of the best goal-scorers in the league right now.

I’m trying to put it in a way that does not discredit him…those guys, they find a way to score. The puck finds a way to go in. I thought it hit me in the leg and goes off my blocker and finds a way to go in. It’s not the prettiest goal in the world.

It’s one of those ones that just, it sneaks in and it’s tough to swallow, especially when you know it’s still within our grasp. Three goals. We can score three goals, no problem, in this locker room, and then to give one up like that? Minute into the period, it’s pretty deflating. It sucks to give up for the guys.

Adam Gaudette

Gaudette, on how this young San Jose Sharks was like last year’s young Ottawa Senators team, both in their first playoff races:

Very similar situation. It feels like last year all over again, and we’re right there. We just can’t get too down. We got to clean it up and get back to it on Saturday.

[We did in Ottawa] a lot of the same things we’re doing here. We stuck to the gameplan. We all bought in, we all worked our tails off. Everybody’s doing the same thing here, and we just got to keep working and good things will happen.

Mario Ferraro

Ferraro, on how San Jose Sharks allowed “snowball effect” to overtake them after getting down:

I think our first period was pretty good, but I think what happens is, when we let in a goal, there’s a little bit of a snowball effect, we go down two, maybe three, we try to find quick ways to fix it, and we get off our game plan, we go out of script, and more turnovers start being created, and then more chances again.

So a lot of our problem is trying to fix it and changing the way that we play throughout the game, when we’re down or when we don’t have momentum and stuff like that, and it hurts us a little more.