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2024 mid-season look at San Jose Sharks defense

A few weeks ago, we took a look at the San Jose Sharks forwards and how they’re doing this season, specifically compared to last season. This post, we’re going to take a look at the defense. The turnover on defense has been less pronounced than that of the forward group, but it’s still there. Of the defensemen on the roster in the month of January, four of them were on the roster in January 2024 — Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Mario Ferraro, Jan Rutta and Henry Thrun. While Shakir Mukhamadullin was with the Sharks organization last year, he was playing in the AHL with the Barracuda.

Matt Benning, Kyle Burroughs and Ty Emberson were all traded at various times, while Jake Walman, Cody Ceci, Timothy Liljegren and Jack Thompson were brought into the mix.

While the new additions have helped – especially Walman and Liljegren – the defense is still the Sharks’ weakest point in the lineup. Looking at Evolving-Hockey’s goals above replacement chart for defensemen, you can see that there’s a steep drop off in even-strength offense after Walman at the top. There’s another large drop-off after Liljegren, the second player on the list.

Ferraro creating offense but not converting

When you look at Evolving-Hockey’s expected goals above replacement, one interesting standout is Ferraro. While he’s generating chances according to Evolving-Hockey’s chart, those chances don’t develop into goals for the Sharks.

Ferraro has 5.9 expected goals above replacement at even-strength, but in reality, when you look at the first chart, his numbers resulted in minus-2.4 even-strength goals above replacement.

The first thought would be to look at his his defensive partner. Maybe there’s a pairing that’s bringing down his numbers as a whole. But, looking at his numbers, it doesn’t look like many combinations have worked significantly well to elevate what Ferraro is offering on the ice.

ComboTOIGF/60xGF/60G+/-/60
Ferraro – Liljegren472.22.412.3-0.89
Rutta – Ferraro256.51.642.46-2.11
Ceci – Ferraro11502.23-2.61
Thrun – Ferraro34.63.473.93.47
Walman – Ferraro31.45.731.53-3.82
Mario Ferraro pairings at 5v5. Courtesy: Evolving Hockey.

In almost every combination that Ferraro has played on this season, he has allowed more goals than were scored when he was on the ice. The combination of him and Liljegren seems to work the best, in the sense that it’s scoring more goals than expected, but even that combination is still getting beat when you balance the goals allowed with the goals scored. The minus-0.89 goals is definitely not ideal for a team’s second pairing.

It’s also interesting that in the limited time that Ferraro and Walman played together, they were horrendous. They scored 5.73 goals per 60 minutes and still ended up a minus-3.82 in goals plus/minus per 60 minutes.

Walman unleashed

When the Detroit Red Wings decided the team needed to offload money to improve, Sharks fans should have been understandably skeptical. After all, why would a team pay you a second-round pick to take a good defenseman off of their hands? To this day, we don’t understand.

Jake Walman has been the Sharks’ best defenseman this season. Period.

Looking at his Evolving-Hockey regularized-adjusted plus-minus (RAPM) for the season, he is close to if not in the upper-echelon of offensive defensemen across the league. His ability to drive offense has been one of the reasons the Sharks are fun to watch again. And, he’s having a career year. The defenseman has 28 points in 40 games, already surpassing his career-best 21 points in 63 games.

That career best came last season and when you look at Walman’s RAPM charts from that last season, it’s hard to understand just how this defenseman changed this much on arguably a worst team.

Walman was paired with Moritz Seider last season. Seider is considered a mobile and smart two-way defenseman, so it would stand to reason that Walman would have done well paired with Seider last season. He did not, and while his goals per 60 minutes (GF/60) were above league average, it was nowhere near where it is this season.

Walman clearly had some impact on Seider’s game because when you compare Seider’s performance last season to this one, you can see that while the defense has excelled, the offense has not.

Ceci, Rutta’s deficiencies amplified

While some players have excelled in a new environment, others have not. Ceci has been the Sharks’ worst defenseman this season.

Looking at his Evolving-Hockey RAPM charts from 2023-24 and 2024-25, his expected goals against wasn’t great with the Edmonton Oilers last season, but it was manageable. This season, it’s a disaster.

One could argue that the Oilers high-powered offense helped mitigate Ceci’s damage on defense, but it’s hard when you look at how profusely Ceci’s numbers have dropped off across the board.

Ceci has not worked out in San Jose, so it’s understandable that General Manager Mike Grier has not started conversations to re-up his contract, which expires in July. The only hope is that Grier can recoup something for Ceci at the trade deadline.

The same can be said for defenseman Rutta, who has seen a carousel of defensive partners this season. Rutta has paired with seven different defensemen, and very few of the combinations have worked out favorably for the Sharks.

ComboTOIGF/60GA/60G+/-/60
Rutta – Ferraro256.61.643.74-2.11
Thrun – Rutta192.22.813.12-0.31
Rutta – Mukhamadullin107.41.120.560.56
Thompson – Rutta67.30.894.46-3.57
Rutta – Vlasic49.74.832.412.41
Walman – Rutta46.92.561.281.28
Ceci – Rutta34.201.75-1.75
Jan Rutta pairings at 5v5. Courtesy: Evolving Hockey.

Rutta’s best defensive partner was Vlasic, while his worst was Thompson. The one positive in these combinations was Rutta’s ability to switch from the left and right sides easily. That may be Grier’s biggest and best selling point at the trade deadline.

What to do with MEV?

Vlasic has yet to hit the 100 minute mark this season, which is why he does not show up on any of these charts. With one more season left after this one, Vlasic could be the lone “veteran” defenseman on the roster after the trade deadline.

There is no avenue to trade Vlasic and while he has been injury prone, there’s no guarantee he will stay that way. Best guess is that if Vlasic is ready to play next season, he serves as the defensive mentor to whichever young defenseman jumps to the NHL. Since GMMG will have cleared out all the older defensemen at that point, the Sharks may be able to afford giving Vlasic that spot in the lineup, especially if he continues to play at the okay level he’s played at so far this season.

Young players biding their time

The good news is that if the Sharks manage to sell either Ceci or Rutta or both at the deadline, it will give the younger defensemen an opportunity to step into larger roles with the team. Thompson, Mukhamadullin, Liljegren and Thrun have all played at varying times for the Sharks, but have never been permanent fixtures in the lineup the way Rutta and Ceci have been.

There are likely a few reasons for this. One, the Sharks wanted veteran players to help the young forwards feel more at ease as they learned in the NHL. Two, players like Mukhamadullin and Thompson can move between the AHL and NHL without having to clear waivers.

Allowing these younger players all to play at the same time might also change the structure of the Sharks’ defense. To date, none of these players have played more than 30 minutes on a defensive combination with Walman.

If Ceci is traded, could we see Walman pairing with Thompson? While the pairing of Liljegren and Ferraro has worked out well, could we soon see Liljegren pair with one of the younger players like Mukhamadullin? There are options that could give Sharks’ fans a better idea of what the future could look like.

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