The San Jose Sharks had the chance to play spoiler last night against the Edmonton Oilers, but instead, ended up seeing just how far the team needs to go to be considered one of the best teams in the NHL. While top young players like Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith and William Eklund tried to hold their own against the Oilers, it was simply too easy for Edmonton to be just a bit better. Despite some injuries that included Leon Draisaitl, Edmonton easily won round three of the season series by a final score of 4-2.
When you look at Natural Stat Trick’s Corsi differential in all situations, you see that the Oilers didn’t ever give the Sharks a shot of getting in the game.
Goaltender Georgi Romanov was tested early and often. He faced 14 shots in the first period and 12 more in the second. By the end of the night, he had faced 33 shots and stopped 30 of them. And, as you can see from MoneyPuck’s scoring chances chart, they weren’t all easy stops.
Edmonton tacked on an empty-netter to finish out the night. Romanov, for his part, had another admirable showing, finishing with a 0.75 goals saved above expected.
Smith still on fire, Celebrini had a rough night
The night was a mixed bag for the rookies. Will Smith continues to stay hot in the final stretch of the season. He scored the first goal of the game for the Sharks and now has five goals and eight points in his last four games.
As you can see from Hockey Stat Cards’ game report, Smith and Nikolai Kovalenko (who had the lone assist on Smith’s goal) were the best forwards on the ice for the Sharks last night.
NHL GameScore Impact Card for San Jose Sharks on 2025-04-11: pic.twitter.com/lTrbvCOHm2
— HockeyStatCards (@hockeystatcards) April 12, 2025
The third player on that line, Macklin Celebrini, had a difficult night. Celebrini was middle of the pack in terms of game impact. As you can see from his individual event map, courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Celebrini had five giveaways last night.
Celebrini wasn’t the only player who was sloppy with the puck, in the second period, Head Coach Ryan Warsofsky started his second power play unit because he wanted his first unit to protect the puck better.
Warsofsky says starting 2nd period w/ his 2nd power play unit, Goodrow-Kovalenko-Lund-Carlsson-Liljegren, 45 seconds to go in the PP, was a message to his top PP unit, which was sloppy to end 1st period. Also, w/ not a lot of time left on PP, wanted to get 2 d-men out there
— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) April 12, 2025
Sharks’ penalty kill needs work
Yes, the Sharks did trade top penalty killers like Nico Sturm and Luke Kunin away at the trade deadline. And yes, the Sharks did send Collin Graf, who had been filling that penalty killing role, back down to the Barracuda. That said, San Jose will need to work on its PK and maybe bring someone in to fill the role whether internally or externally this offseason.
Last night was another example of the Sharks’ inability to kill off penalties. The team took five penalties in the game and allowed goals on two of them.
Since the trade deadline, the Sharks have spent 75.13 minutes on the penalty kill, according to Evolving-Hockey, and have the worst goals against per 60 minutes in the league at 12.78. The Sharks’ penalty kill was middling with Kunin and Sturm in the fold; without them, it’s downright dismal.
Scoring summary San Jose Sharks at Edmonton Oilers April 11, 2025
First Period
6:47 EDM Evan Bouchard from Connor McDavid and Adam Henrique on the power play
15:41 EDM Ty Emberson from Connor McDavid and Evan Bouchard
17:13 SJS Will Smith from Nikolai Kovalenko
Second Period
5:44 SJS Henry Thrun from William Eklund
Third Period
7:32 EDM Corey Perry from Connor McDavid and Adam Henrique on the power play
19:34 EDM Connor Brown from Darnell Nurse and Connor McDavid into an empty net
