Mario Ferraro 2023 player review: San Jose’s workhorse

Mario Ferraro gets the title of this season’s workhorse for the San Jose Sharks. Ferraro did a ton of the work but, in true workhorse fashion, will get none of the credit.

Admittedly, fellow blueliner Erik Karlsson logged almost 600 minutes more than Ferraro this past season, but we’ll dive into Karlsson’s season review later. The fact of the matter is, Ferraro was third on the team in ice time with 1555:25 and he played 10 fewer games than the two people above him – Logan Couture and Karlsson.

That’s a lot of time on the ice, even for a 24-year-old.

Ferraro’s 2022-23 production

Given that amount of ice time, you would hope that Ferraro’s numbers would be better. Sadly, they’re not.

The defenseman had just 11 points this season. Even for a defensive defenseman, those are not good numbers.

Take, for instance, some of the top defensive defensemen in the league. The New York Islanders’ Adam Pelech played 61 games with approximately 1,320 minutes of ice time. Pelech had 21 points (6 G, 15 A).

Meanwhile, Boston’s Brandon Carlo logged just over 1,410 minutes and had 16 points (3 G, 13 A) in 75 games.

You could also look at a player like Chris Tanev, who scored 13 points (1 G, 12 A) in more than 1,305 minutes of ice time last season.

When put into context, Ferraro is below the curve.

Ferraro logged a ton of minutes

Part of the problem this season may have been Ferraro’s partners on defense. For Ferraro, this past season was like attending a square dance. He never knew who his partner would be when the music stopped.

Ferraro spent at least some time with almost every other defenseman that suited up for San Jose this season. In fact, he logged over 100 minutes with seven different players.

While he played the most with Matt Benning (408:08), he also played considerable time with Erik Karlsson (269:59), Radim Simek (195:09) and Marc-Edouard Vlasic (190:53).

As Sharks fans would know more than most, chemistry can make or break a defensive pairing. That’s why for years, a “Wookie Whisperer” was needed to play alongside Brent Burns. You need to know your partner’s tendencies to work well with him.

For Ferraro, the lack of stability likely hurt his play this season. He continued to maintain the other aspects of his game. He led the team in blocked shots with 145. He was second on the team in hits with 129. (Steven Lorentz led the team in hits this season.)

He also ate minutes. 1555:25 minutes in 72 games. Projected out to an 82-game season that’s approximately 1771:25 minutes of ice time which would put him handily into second on the team. As it is, Ferraro was 105th in the entire NHL for ice time last season.

What does this season say about Ferraro as a player?

With all those minutes played and four years of NHL hockey under his belt, we’re starting to understand who Ferraro is as a player. In the last four years, he has played 61 games, 56 games, 63 games and 72 games. Over that span, his individual point percentage (IPP) has dropped steadily.

As a defenseman, Ferraro will understandably have a lower IPP than just about any forward on the Sharks’ team. Forwards, in general, register more points because they are among the last to touch the puck.

However, for the amount of time that Ferraro was on the ice for the Sharks this season, you would want a much higher IPP than 21.57. Ferraro was second to the last on the team this year, with only Radim Simek behind him.

What’s more, this IPP does not seem to be an aberration. It has steadily declined over his four years in the NHL.

Usually, an IPP is an indicator of a trend in a player’s game. As Ferraro gains even more experience in the league, his IPP may jump up to the 30-40 range. That’s the range you’re looking for from a player that logs the high volume of minutes that Ferraro does. Maybe if he receives a steady defensive partner in 2023-24, he can start to build some chemistry and establish his game.

But right now, it’s not good enough. Compared to all defensemen in the NHL with 1,000 minutes of ice time or more, Ferraro ranks 157th out of 167 players in IPP. He’s 158th on the list in terms of points.

Ferraro as a leader

Ferraro can be seen as lacking in the production department, but he provides the team with value off the ice. There’s a reason why there’s an “A” on his jersey.

Ferraro adds something to the Sharks’ locker room. He helps bridge the gap between the veterans on the team and the youth. That’s a huge asset to a team in transition.  

Given how often we’ve seen him over the past few years, it’s easy to forget that he is just 24 years old – he’ll be 25 in September. He’s still growing into his game, and he knows there are things he will need to work on in the summer to continue to be a leader on the team.

“I want to be better at controlling my emotions,” said Ferraro in his exit interview in April. “I think this year, it got frustrating, for sure. It’s a frustrating season. Nobody likes to lose, and we don’t accept losing. I think I let my emotions get the best of me a little bit out there, and that’s something I want to do a better job of controlling, and I believe in myself to be able to do it.”

As an alternate captain, the players look to him, and he knows what he needs to do to improve.

“I think a good one is focusing on the next shift, maybe,” Ferraro said. “I think sometimes with our group as a whole when one thing happened it was kind of a domino effect in games. I think we got better at it as the year went on. And I think that every individual can have an impact on that and I want to do a better job at controlling that for us as a team and helping us balance that out.

“Helping us realize, ‘Hey, like, other teams are gonna make good plays too.’ Things are gonna happen throughout the game. They’re gonna get bounces; they’re gonna get chances. We can level; we can weather the storm and we can come back and use it to our advantage,” Ferraro continued.

Ferraro’s future with the Sharks

Ferraro signed a new contract last August. It’s a deal that will keep him with the Sharks through the 2025-26 season with an AAV of $3.25 million.

The trouble is, Ferraro played well below that contract this season. The Athletics’ Shayna Goldman and Dom Luszczyszyn created player cards for most of the NHL players and found Ferraro well short of his worth. In fact, according to them, Ferraro’s play this season was worthy of a league minimum contract.

That said, it’s hard to envision San Jose doing anything with Ferraro except letting him play out his contract. Ferraro is at worst, the team’s third best defenseman currently. With Vlasic getting older and Karlsson’s fate in San Jose undecided, Ferraro may be the best defensive option for the Sharks until the end of his contract.

The good news for Sharks’ fans is that Ferraro still has room to grow. It will be interesting to see if his personal diagnosis regarding his emotions is correct. If he can better learn to control his emotions and his game gets better, then Ferraro may end up living up to his contract after all. A steady partner on defense may also help improve his game.

Editor’s Note: Over the next few weeks, we will be rolling out the player reviews for the San Jose Sharks. We realize there were a lot of guys rotating into and out of the lineup and some of the key depth players were traded. As a result, Fear the Fin plans to focus on the players that are 1) still with the Sharks and 2) played 20 or more games for San Jose this season.