San Jose Sharks' Blueprint to Return to the Stanley Cup Final in 2017

The San Jose Sharks’ season came to a bittersweet end on Sunday, with the team falling two wins short of the NHL title and the right to hoist the Stanley Cup. No franchise competes for second place, though as the standing ovation from fans at SAP Center showed, Sharks partisans recognized that 2015-16 was a rare and important achievement for the club.

Though San Jose fell short of the ultimate goal, the Sharks did manage to dispel two myths about the club. First, despite the long-standing narrative, this is a team capable of winning in the postseason. Second, there’s still some gas left in the tank; even with some obvious (and literal) greybeards, the heart of the club is young enough that its championship window has not closed.

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

The task for general manager Doug Wilson now is to build on the successes of 2016 and find a way to win two more games in 2017.

We have some suggestions as to how the team might be able to accomplish that.

Add a high-end left wing

Most teams have a top-six forward group, but in 2015-16, the Sharks only had a top-five group. By scoring or shot metrics, there were five players who distinguished themselves from the pack:

Player	5v5 P/60 (reg.)	Corsi% (reg.)	5v5 P/60 (p/o)	Corsi% (p/o)
Joe Thornton	2.4	56.1	2.0	52.8
Joe Pavelski	2.1	55.1	2.1	52.2
Tomas Hertl	2.0	56.5	1.8	54.5
Joonas Donskoi	1.7	53.3	2.1	51.9
Logan Couture	1.6	53.1	2.1	51.3
Joel Ward	1.5	52.6	1.9	45.8
Patrick Marleau	1.2	50.4	1.2	45.2

Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski and Tomas Hertl were an effective first line both in the regular season and in the playoffs, scoring and dominating the shot clock. Logan Couture did a nice job centering the second unit, and right wing Joonas Donskoi was a brilliant offseason pickup out of Europe.

That leaves a vacancy on Couture’s left wing and no obvious internal candidate to fill the slot.

Patrick Marleau’s decline continued this season, and while he remains a formidable weapon on the power play, he was often consigned to a lesser role at even strength by new head coach Peter DeBoer. He turns 37 in September, and it seems unwise to bank on him as an even-strength scorer next season.

Joel Ward might be a better bet, but he's a natural right wing who plays on both special teams units. He’ll turn 36 in December, and it is likely inadvisable to ask him to take on a feature role on his off wing in addition to his other duties.

There should be a number of good options available this summer at left wing in both free agency and via trade. The list of possible free-agent additions is long, though the idea of San Jose raiding the division rival L.A. Kings (Milan Lucic) or a perennial powerhouse in the Chicago Blackhawks (Andrew Ladd) is somewhat interesting. If the Sharks want to prioritize speed, there are indications that the Edmonton Oilers' Benoit Pouliot could be available in trade. 

Rocky W. Widner/NHL/Getty Images

Overhaul the third pair

There was no gradual decline in San Jose’s defensive ability in the postseason. The top four defenders were all at 50 percent or better by Corsi percentage, after which came a steep drop to bruisers Roman Polak (46 percent) and Brenden Dillon (42 percent).

That unfortunate penchant for getting outshot showed up in the goal totals, too. At five-on-five, three of San Jose’s top four defencemen had a positive goal differential in double digits, while Polak was at minus-four and Dillon at minus-six. There is no “they were so good in the defensive zone that it didn’t matter that they were outshot” argument.

Dillon, who has four years left at a $3.27 million cap hit, owns what is undoubtedly San Jose’s worst contract. Trading him away, if possible, is probably the Sharks’ best option. Failing that, he’s still young and had success in prior campaigns when playing with better puck-movers than Polak. The trick for Wilson will be to find a competent right-shooting puck-mover in a market that lacks those players.

Polak showed over the course of the postseason that he was a less-than-ideal complement to Dillon, and despite the team’s overall success his acquisition should not be regarded as a particularly strong trade deadline move by the general manager.  

Keith Srakocic/Associated Press

Overhaul the bottom six 

The other half of the trade that brought Polak in also added Nick Spaling to the roster, and it was easy to understand why San Jose would be interested in the player. The Sharks’ bottom six (in particular the fourth line) struggled to score for most of the regular season, and the team’s penalty kill was in the bottom-third in the league.

Spaling, on paper, was a potential solution, and to be fair, he was better than most of San Jose’s other penalty-killers. However, he picked up just a single assist over a 24-game playoff run and failed to adequately bolster the bottom line in five-on-five situations. He wasn’t the only player at the bottom of the depth chart to struggle—most of them did—but he’s worth highlighting because the Sharks brought him in as a solution to existing problems.

The previously discussed addition of a high-end left wing will help the team’s depth, pushing Marleau and Ward into full-time third-line duty and creating a bit of a ripple effect. However, one of Wilson’s secondary objectives should be to add at least one and possibly two players who can kill penalties and make some sort of positive contribution at five-on-five. Those players can displace Spaling and fellow free-agent Dainius Zubrus, who was exposed by Pittsburgh in the Cup Final.

How does San Jose pay for it all? Well, with $10.5 million in cap space and Hertl the team’s only significant player needing a new contract, the Sharks have some money to play with. A left wing should be the top priority, followed by a defenceman. After that, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a depth forward or two with the money that’s left over.

With those additions, the Sharks could be even stronger entering next season than they were on the road to the Stanley Cup Final this spring.

Statistics courtesy of Hockey-Reference.com, Corsica and Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com. Salary information via General Fanager.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.