The San Jose Sharks are ten games into this 2023-24 season and already, the team has, by far, the best odds in the 2024 NHL Draft lottery. Of course, that naturally means that the Sharks will not win the draft lottery, but that’s an issue for a different time.
Through those ten games, the Sharks have rotated in nine different defensemen in an effort to find someone, anyone, who will help protect the team’s goaltenders. Thus far, the results have not been good.
Evovling-Hockey has a handy chart that looks at Goals Above Replacement for all of San Jose’s defensemen. It’s a good chart to look at when you want to get an idea of who is playing well – i.e., generating scoring chances and limiting chances for the other team – and who is not.
Note that Jacob MacDonald is on the list, but his only game played for the Sharks was not on defense. He was a forward last night. Also note that all things are not equal on this chart, some players have played considerably more minutes than others. However, it’s a good jumping off point as we look at how well, or poorly, the team has played through the first one-eighth of the season.
Looking at other charts for each player is going to be boring and repetitive because, let’s face it, there’s going to be a lot of red and not a lot of positives to take away from it all. So, instead, let’s look at some key numbers for the Sharks defensemen.
Mario Ferraro – 216:46
Through ten games, Mario Ferraro is the go to guy for the Sharks, unless you’re talking about the power play. Of his 216:46 of ice time (an average of 21:41 minutes per game), Ferraro has played just 52 seconds on the power play. In other words, he’s once against the workhorse being asked to log hard minutes in the worst situations.
Ty Emberson – 55.68%
For Ty Emberson, the 55.68% represents the shots for percentage. Emberson has played six games for the Sharks and has almost logged 100 minutes of NHL ice time. However, he is the only defenseman on the team (remember MacDonald does not count for the purposes of this discussion) that has a positive shots for versus shots against percentage.
When Emberson is on the ice, the Sharks have taken 49 shots while the opposition has taken 39.
Jan Rutta – 24
As in 24 shots blocked through 10 games. Rutta led the team early on, though Ferraro (28) has caught up and passed him recently. Without Rutta blocking 2.4 shots per game, things could be a lot worse. As it is, Mackenzie Blackwood and Kaapo Kahkonen are facing too many shots.
Kyle Burroughs – 10.72
There’s scoring goals and then there’s doing the things that help your team score goals. For Kyle Burroughs, we will focus on the things that help your team.
Burroughs leads the defense with 10.72 expected goals for. That means that if all the conditions were perfect – i.e. no amazing goalie save, a shooter that actually hits the net, etc. – Burroughs would have been on the ice for at least ten goals.
Nikita Okhotiuk – 19:16
For Nikita Okhotiuk, 19:16 represents the ice time he had in his one game for the Sharks. We’ll add another stat into that mix. In the abysmal 10-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night, Okhotiuk was on the ice for three of the goals against. One of those three came on the highly potent Vancouver power play.
Listen, everyone played poorly on Thursday night, but it could be argued that Okhotiuk played less poorly than his counterparts.
Matt Benning – 7
One of the most egregious errors the San Jose Sharks are committing in the team’s own end is giving away the puck. No player on the team has given the puck away more than Benning. In fact, he’s tied with forward Filip Zadina for the team lead at seven apiece. Benning has not made up for it in the takeaway department. The differential is a minus-four.
Nikolai Knyzhov – 25%
The Sharks give up a lot of goals and the team doesn’t score a lot of them through ten games. So, for this Sharks team, 25% is actually a pretty good stat. That’s Knyzhov’s goals for percentage. He was on the ice for two goals for the Sharks and six goals against. That’s the second-best GF% after Henry Thrun, who we’ll talk about in a minute.
Marc-Edouard Vlasic – 13:37
13:37 represents the average ice time for Marc-Edouard Vlasic through the seven games he’s played this season. It’s the lowest mark of his career, including that abysmal 2021-22 season.
Vlasic has been ineffectual for the Sharks this season. He’s not blocking shots. He has 10 total, which is fifth among defensemen. He has zero points.
Most of all, he has the highest AAV out of all of them.
Henry Thrun – 28.57%
The San Jose Sharks have ten goals this season through ten games, so not great overall. The defense has registered seven points between them all, and Henry Thrun has two of them. That’s right, the kid playing with the Barracuda right now accounts for 28.57% of the points for the Sharks defense.
In case you’re wondering, Ferraro also has two points. Three players have one point – Knyzhov, Emberson and Benning.
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