{"id":513285,"date":"2026-03-20T14:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/513285\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:15:13","slug":"san-jose-sharks-still-in-playoff-mix-thanks-to-a-bad-pacific-division-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/513285\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks still in playoff mix, thanks to a bad Pacific Division"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE \u2013 With some better results,<\/a> the Sharks could easily have some breathing room above the playoff cutline<\/a> right now. Or, considering their recent struggles, and with 15 games left, they could be mostly out of contention.<\/a><\/p>\n

Somehow, neither is the case, as the middling Sharks have greatly benefited from being in the NHL\u2019s worst division.<\/a><\/p>\n

Going into their matinee game against the Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> on Saturday, the Sharks (32-29-6), who have won only two of their last eight, remain just two points out of a playoff spot, although they\u2019ve fallen from ninth to 11th in the Western Conference over the last 11 days.<\/p>\n

If the Sharks were in the East, they\u2019d be in 15th place, and already thinking about the draft lottery.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sharks lost 5-0<\/a> to the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday and have not earned any points in their last three games, allowing 16 goals on a manned net in the process.<\/p>\n

It has hardly mattered. Pacific Division teams went a combined 0-5-1 on Thursday, with the Seattle Kraken losing in regulation time<\/a> to the Nashville Predators and the Los Angeles Kings losing in a shootout to the Flyers.<\/p>\n

Only one Pacific Division team, the Anaheim Ducks, actually has more wins than losses when overtime and shootout results are included.<\/p>\n

The Sharks, with 70 points, now trail the Kraken and Predators by one point, and the Kings, who hold the second wild card spot in the West, by two. The Sharks have one game in hand on all three teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re right in it still,\u201d Sharks goalie Alex Nedeljkovic said after he stopped 11 of 16 shots in the loss to the Sabres. \u201cNobody really wants to take advantage of everybody else\u2019s mishaps right now. So, we\u2019re getting fortunate. We\u2019re getting a little bit of help there, and we just need to worry about ourselves now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nedeljkovic added that the Sharks might be a bit guilty of scoreboard watching. Not that they\u2019re checking their phones for results during intermissions, but they\u2019ve perhaps been too hopeful that other teams around them in the standings continue to struggle.<\/p>\n

The focus needs to be on themselves, and there is plenty to improve upon there.<\/p>\n

The Sharks in their last six games have allowed 27 goals, and, per Natural Stat Trick<\/a>, 73 high-danger chances during 5-on-5 play \u2013 more than any other NHL team.<\/p>\n

The Sabres generated 13 such chances<\/a> on Thursday and scored on four consecutive shots from the 9:05 mark of the second period to the 40-second mark of the third.<\/p>\n

The Sharks felt it wasn\u2019t a 5-0 game. They played a solid first period when they generated at least three Grade A scoring chances during 5-on-5 play, although that wasn\u2019t reflected in Natural Stat Trick\u2019s accounting.<\/p>\n

Will Smith also hit the post in the second period, right before Noah Ostlund scored the first goal, pouncing on a funky bounce off the end boards.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we played as bad a game as the score showed,\u201d Sharks forward Adam Gaudette said. \u201cBut just some mistakes, and they capitalized and put it in the net.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam Carrick and Rasmus Dahlin then both scored on quick transition plays, with the Sabres catching the Sharks on a line change on Dahlin\u2019s goal at the 10:48 mark of the second that made it 3-0.<\/p>\n

Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro was unable to catch up with Dahlin, who was all alone on Nedeljkovic, after the line change. The Sharks were also listed as having 19 giveaways.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially at this time of the year, we know that can\u2019t happen. It\u2019s going to hurt us,\u201d Ferraro said of the giveaways. \u201cOur first period was pretty good, but I think what happens is, when we let in a goal, there\u2019s 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 off script, and more turnovers start being created, and then more chances again.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, a lot of our problem is trying to fix it and changing the way that we play throughout the game, when we\u2019re down or when we don\u2019t have momentum, and it hurts us a little more. So, it\u2019s finding ways to weather it, and that\u2019s kind of what happened tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sharks have opportunities to get things right, as after Saturday, 10 of their final 14 games<\/a> are against teams either below or, like Nashville, right above them in the NHL standings.<\/p>\n

The Kings are on pace for 87 points. If that holds up, the Sharks only need 18 more points in their final 15 games to catch them. Maybe that\u2019ll be enough to hold off Nashville and Seattle, too.<\/p>\n

The Sharks just can\u2019t get too caught up in what those teams are doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to stop scoreboard watching and start worrying about what we can do to secure points every single night, just taking it shift by shift,\u201d Nedeljkovic said. \u201cIt starts there. You win your shift. That doesn\u2019t mean scoring a goal. It doesn\u2019t mean getting an assist, or even sometimes playing in the offensive zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it just means maybe you blocked a shot, or you didn\u2019t allow a clean entry. You got a hit. You did something to get us some momentum, or at least keep it sort of 50\/50. Leave the ice, and put your teammates in a good spot to have success in their shift coming up. So we have to just focus on ourselves, one shift at a time, and get back to what makes us successful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2013 With some better results, the Sharks could easily have some breathing room above the playoff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5112],"tags":[229,1468,5,4,2219,1467,56,5205,168],"class_list":{"0":"post-513285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-flyers","8":"tag-buffalo-sabres","9":"tag-flyers","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-pacific-division","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","15":"tag-philadelphiaflyers","16":"tag-san-jose-sharks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116261927577986745","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513285","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=513285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}