{"id":403761,"date":"2026-01-12T17:56:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T17:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/403761\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T17:56:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T17:56:19","slug":"sharks-must-improve-their-defense-to-become-true-nhl-stanley-cup-contender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/403761\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharks must improve their defense to become true NHL Stanley Cup contender"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsportsbayarea.com\/nhl\/san-jose-sharks\/defense-loss-golden-knights\/1906702\/?partner=yahoo&amp;cid=yahoo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Sharks must improve their defense to become true NHL Stanley Cup contender;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Sharks must improve their defense to become true NHL Stanley Cup contender<\/a> originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsportsbayarea.com?cid=yahoo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:NBC Sports Bay Area;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">NBC Sports Bay Area<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t take an NHL general manager to figure out that the Sharks need to improve their defense to get to the next level.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s no disrespect, truly, to their current blueliners, who have done admirable work to help San Jose to a surprising 23-19-3 record.<\/p>\n<p>But if the Sharks are going to be a Cup contender, like their counterparts on Sunday night, the Las Vegas Golden Knights, they\u2019re going to need some internal and external growth on the blueline in the coming years.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t an overreaction to a 7-2 loss on Sunday to Vegas.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what a league source, not with the San Jose Sharks or Knights, texted San Jose Hockey Now during the game.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/4l4mpADVRh5IPCdD2uRw1i\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Download and follow the San Jose Hockey Now podcast;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Download and follow the San Jose Hockey Now podcast<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sharks must improve their defense to become true NHL Stanley Cup contender originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5127],"tags":[5,2988,4,519,12984,168,5306,5305,1780,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-403761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose-sharks","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-las-vegas-golden-knights","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-san-jose","12":"tag-san-jose-hockey","13":"tag-san-jose-sharks","14":"tag-sanjose","15":"tag-sanjosesharks","16":"tag-sharks","17":"tag-vegas"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115883421453180820","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}