Sharks look to improve portfolio in NHL ‘stock market’ as league-leading Jets visit San Jose

SAN JOSE Its not every day you hear a hockey player wax poetic about the securities industry.

But thats the metaphor Sharks centerman Nico Sturm used to describe the course of San Joses growth.

The Sharks currently sit seventh in the Pacific Division, just one point ahead of the Anaheim Ducks for the last place.

Yet Sturm, who has been with San Jose since 2022, sees a positive differential with this years Sharks team.

Its kind of like the stock market, Sturm said.

You look over the last year, two years, has it gone up or gone down? And not just in the last week, the last two weeks.

Thats just life in the NHL, both as an individual player and as a team.

Some games, you feel like youre fighting the puck or the pucks not coming to you at all.

Other games, theres like three, four games in a row, you feel like the game loves you back, and the pucks ending up on your stick.

You get the rebounds, you get the bounces.

Overall, as a team, youve got to continue to build.

I do think were turning in the right direction.

Most recently, the Sharks have trended down in the market, losing a testy matchup with Utah on Saturday in San Jose.

That game featured a few notable no-calls that the Sharks didnt love.

Part of improving as a team is earning the respect of the league and its officials.

San Jose doesnt feel like its quite there yet.

The reality is youre not gonna get that until youre a better team.

Thats the reality of life in the NHL.

Youve gotta earn it, Sturm said.

...

And the refs, while they certainly werent great the other game, they were not the reason why we lost the game.

There were bad calls on both sides.

Mikael Granlund, who took a high hit from Logan Cooley that was not called in the third period, kept the focus on maintaining Sharks level of physicality, a priority under first-year coach Ryan Warsofsky.

Its part of the game, Granlund said.

Give a hit, you need to take a hit.

And a lot of it is just battles.

Winning battles.

Its not always a big hit, but if youre really hard and heavy on your battles, thats probably the greatest physicality there is.

Warsofskys mandate heading into the season was for the Sharks to become a harder team to play against than last year, when they finished dead last in the NHL standings and had many uncompetitive games.

San Jose isnt at that level yet, and Warsofsky can tell based on the general disposition of the league at large.

But he thinks the Sharks are taking the right steps toward that goal.

Thats not against the officials, Warsofsky said.

Thats just where this organization has been the last few years.

But its starting to turn.

Were starting to get respect back in the National Hockey League for the most part.

Most of the year, weve been pretty competitive.

San Jose has a golden opportunity to showcase how much it has grown on Tuesday.

The Sharks will welcome the league-leading Winnipeg Jets to SAP Center, a squad that boat-raced them 8-3 in their last meeting on Oct.

18 in Winnipeg.

What better chance could there be to display how much San Jose has improved? I want us to go on the attack, Warsofsky said.

Instead of playing for survival and just trying to get through hockey games, I want to get on the attack and get on these guys.

When we do that, we can play with the best teams in the league.

Injury update Warsofsky said after Mondays practice that forward Klim Kostin, who was placed on injured reserve after suffering an upper-body injury against Tampa Bay on Dec.

5, remains day-to-day.

The earliest the Sharks could activate Kostin is Dec.

20, after the end of their three-game homestand.

But it sounds like Kostin might need a little more time.

Wont play tomorrow, still day-to-day, Warsofsky said.

I think he had a good day today.

Ill check back with our guys.

But I would say hes a little bit I would say its probably not Thursday either.

Not skating yet, so that kind of puts him behind a little bit.

Kostin is not expected to be out for the long term, but his status is up in the air as San Jose prepares to travel to Edmonton on Saturday and Vancouver on Monday..

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