{"id":897823,"date":"2026-10-28T18:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T18:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/897823\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T18:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T18:34:13","slug":"san-jose-sharks-blue-line-issue-could-sink-them-in-nhl-playoff-hunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/897823\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks’ blue-line issue could sink them in NHL playoff hunt"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Jose Sharks<\/a> don\u2019t have a scoring problem.<\/p>\n

I know that sounds ridiculous<\/a> after being shut out on Tuesday, but hear me out:<\/p>\n

The Sharks<\/a>\u2018 real problem is on the blueline.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s a very expensive problem at that.<\/p>\n

Sharks general manager Mike Grier spent the last calendar year chucking sacks of cash and prime draft capital at veteran defensemen like an anxious prepper stockpiling canned beans in a bunker. The result is a sluggish, $20 million defense that fundamentally doesn\u2019t affect winning.<\/p>\n

San Jose\u2019s promising rebuild is choking on static hockey. And that brings us to the uncomfortable question hovering over SAP Center: Can you trust the general manager who spent a fortune assembling this blue line to fix it?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong. I like Michael Kesselring.<\/p>\n

And Jacob Trouba brings legitimate veteran punch. Nolan Allan has looked sharp when he\u2019s in the lineup (why that\u2019s not every night is beyond me), and 19-year-old Sam Dickinson keeps flashing strong traits when he takes the body instead of using his stick.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t about them. This is about two guys eating up gargantuan minutes and are currently offering zero return: Darnell Nurse and Dmitry Orlov.<\/p>\n

Tuesday night\u2019s 2-0 loss to the Buffalo Sabres was a grueling watch.<\/p>\n

The Sharks were blanked, mustered an anemic 23 shots and wandered through a 10-minute wasteland in the third period without putting a single rubber disc on net. Buffalo netminder Colten Ellis was stellar, but Yaroslav Askarov was just as brilliant at the other end.<\/p>\n

The forwards aren\u2019t the culprit for the loss, either.<\/p>\n

The forward lines make sense right now. Michael Misa and Will Smith look electric together, and Kiefer Sherwood buzzes around like an over-caffeinated wrecking ball creating nightly havoc on the third line.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the guys standing behind them who are killing the operation. San Jose can\u2019t generate anything at 5-on-5 because their defensemen couldn\u2019t orchestrate a clean breakout with a GPS and a five-minute head start.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with Orlov. To borrow an immortal line from Office Space: What would you say you do here?<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t defend, he\u2019s a black hole atop the first power-play unit, and his primary skill appears to be coughing up pucks under zero duress \u2014 he had two bad giveaways and caused a few more Tuesday.<\/p>\n

And Buffalo\u2019s dagger in the closing minute was peak Orlov. With the goalie pulled and San Jose down 1-0, Orlov stood flat-footed at the blue line and watched the puck hang five feet in front of him.<\/p>\n

Instead of making an easy pinch to maintain zone time, he froze. When he finally made a move, it was the worst thing he could have done. He gifted Buffalo an effortless tap-out, lost a feeble footrace and watched an empty-netter seal the game.<\/p>\n

That isn\u2019t an anomaly. It\u2019s a nightly feature.<\/p>\n

Orlov anchors the top power play almost by default, yet he has generated exactly one power-play assist this season. Meanwhile, Luca Cagnoni \u2014 the Sharks\u2019 supposed power-play quarterback \u2014 sits buried on the second unit.<\/p>\n

Why is Cagnoni \u2014 who is a power-play specialist, even if he hasn\u2019t looked that special at it\u2014 even dressed if he\u2019s only getting 50 seconds of man-advantage time while Orlov logs 3:20 of pure cardio?<\/p>\n

And why on earth are they paired together for 5-on-5 play? That isn\u2019t player development; it\u2019s cruel and unusual punishment.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Nurse, who arrived with a monstrous $9.25 million annual cap hit through 2030 and Edmonton\u2019s collective sigh of relief.<\/p>\n

Nurse wasn\u2019t an outright disaster Tuesday, but he didn\u2019t solve a thing. In 24 minutes of ice time, he was merely large.<\/p>\n

Between Nurse and Trouba ($8.25 million), Grier paid top-dollar retail for veteran muscle that delivers heavy hits and marginal, at best, offense. When Kesselring is your only blue-liner capable of pushing the pace through the neutral zone, as he was Tuesday, your roster construction is cracked.<\/p>\n

Look across the ice at Buffalo. Olen Zellweger was the slickest skater in the building against the Sharks.<\/p>\n

He slices through traps, snaps crisp tape-to-tape outlet passes and runs the umbrella like a maestro. Buffalo stole him last year for a second-round pick; wouldn\u2019t he look great in teal?<\/p>\n

Grier may have future answers simmering in Keaton Verhoeff, Ryan Lin or AHL playmaker Eric Pohlcamp. But they\u2019re years away, and the big-league roster is sinking right now.<\/p>\n

Orlov is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year. Move him, bench him or buy him a plane ticket \u2014 but you can\u2019t justify playing him anymore.<\/p>\n

Because treading water in October sounds harmless until you remember that nobody magically sprouts gills. Eventually, you just drown.<\/p>\n

Grier nailed the forward core and locked down a legit top netminder option in Askarov. But his defensive blueprint is suffocating this franchise, and if he doesn\u2019t right his wrongs in short order, San Jose will miss the playoffs for an eighth straight year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Jose Sharks don\u2019t have a scoring problem. I know that sounds ridiculous after being shut out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":897824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[3805,2356,6755,376415,10831,2558,385,28512,835,10840,10843,99,362],"class_list":["post-897823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-hockey","tag-in-case-you-missed-it","tag-inside-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-nhl","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-south-bay","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}