Note: Due to inclement weather in my area possibly limiting my ability to post later this weekend, all of these numbers are from before Friday night’s Sharks-Rangers game
Is the rebuild over? Maybe?
On Monday, the Sharks dealt a pair of second-round picks and AHL defenseman Cole Clayton to Vancouver for forward Kiefer Sherwood. It’s an unusual move for a team that is seemingly still in a rebuild, though nothing about the Sharks these days is normal.
Sherwood’s enjoying a career year this year at the age of 30 with 23 points in 44 games. That’s what happens when you’re shooting a career-best 15.6 percent shooting percentage. Usually, that’s a huge red flag, but let’s look a little deeper.
Sherwood is a late bloomer. After playing in 50 games his rookie season in Anaheim in 2018-19, he wouldn’t break the 50-game mark again until the 2023-24 season with Nashville. Sherwood set a new career-high in points last year in Vancouver with 40 and was on track to top that this year, though him being out injured right now might prevent him from doing that.
He has an interesting statistical profile as well. Before this year, he was the kind of player who didn’t drive play as much but had more than enough scoring punch to make up for it. Last season, the Canucks had a better expected goals share with him off the ice, but they were a plus-two in actual goals with him on the ice compared to minus-13 without him.
This year, he’s been a more consistent play-driver, though his increased production this year is a little misleading. Sherwood’s played more on the power play in Vancouver this year, and as a result has more power-play points (10) this year than the prior seven seasons combined (four). While he’s also riding a career-best shooting percentage, he is also scoring at a lower rate at five-on-five than the previous two. More power play time is giving his production a lift, but there’s arguably more competition for that icetime in San Jose than in Vancouver.
Stylistically, he’s also rather unique. If Sherwood has the puck, he’s shooting it. If he doesn’t have the puck, he’s hitting whoever does. Since the start of the 2023-24 season, nobody has come close to Sherwood’s 906 hits. Those hits haven’t necessarily led to better defensive impacts, however.
What sets Sherwood apart from a lot of depth forwards, though, is his shot. This season marks back-to-back campaigns where he’s scored more goals than expected, and he’s going to get his shots off. In other words, Sherwood is an elite Stuff Doer.
It’s an odd move from the Sharks for a lot of reasons. For one, it indicates that the team is invested in trying to make the playoffs this year despite some horrendous underlying numbers and the fact that they’re only a year removed from their second of back-to-back last-place finishes. For another, Sherwood turns 31 at the end of March, is on an expiring contract and is the kind of player that general managers across the league will be falling over themselves to sign for way too much money should he hit free agency on July 1.
That’s not the kind of profile that really fits into a rebuilding team. Also, the idea that the same front office that gave William Eklund a bridge deal is going to give Sherwood a long-term deal feels dubious, but Hockey Men do love their gritty veterans.
Overall, Sherwood is a somewhat unique player who has his uses, but it sure feels like the Sharks paid a premium for him. If he helps push Ryan Reaves and/or Barclay Goodrow out of the lineup, that will have some positive downstream effects for San Jose as well. But it’s also a deal that feels a little incomplete until we know how long he’s going to be in teal for.
The Regenda Agenda
The Sharks are full of fun storylines and narratives, but Pavol Regenda might have the best one.
The Slovak went undrafted and played in Sweden and Finland before returning home to play in the Slovak Extraliga for a couple years. Regenda would move to North America in 2022 after the Ducks signed him. He split time between the Ducks and their AHL affiliate, the San Diego Gulls, for two-and-a-half years until Anaheim traded him to San Jose last January in return for Justin Bailey.
At Regenda’s age — he turned 26 this past December — he was no longer a prospect and had seemingly reached his ceiling: an AHL-caliber player who is good enough to play in the NHL in case of an emergency, but not good enough to stick. That might be changing this year in San Jose.
Regenda has gone from grinding it out in the AHL to playing alongside phenom Macklin Celebrini at times for the Sharks. In 12 games in teal, he has eight points, with seven of them being goals. Regenda is actually the team leader in goals per 60 minutes at five-on-five at 1.75 and fifth in points per 60 minutes at 2.18.
The five-on-five impacts so far haven’t been great, but he’s also played under 150 minutes at five-on-five. With Regenda on the ice, the Sharks have a 42.7 percent expected goals share and a 47.8 percent shot attempt share. That’s compared to 44.3 percent expected goals and shot attempt shares without him. Regenda will have to pick it up a little more on the play-driving side to stick, as he can’t ride a high shooting percentage forever, but it’s hard to argue with his production so far.
It’s not always flashy, but finding dependable depth pieces for little to no cost can be a challenge. When the Sharks were at their best in the 2010s, they were able to find players who could play well in limited roles for cheap so that they could allocate resources to acquiring and retaining their elite talent. Joonas Donskoi, Radim Simek, Tim Heed and Melker Karlsson were all European free agent signings. Kevin Labanc and Joakim Ryan were late-round picks. Barclay Goodrow and Aaron Dell were undrafted. Even more recently, the Sharks got Collin Graf essentially for free when he signed with them as a college free agent.
We’ll see where the Regenda Agenda goes from here, but it’s a nice story to keep an eye on.
Miscellaneous notes
If you watched the Sharks hang on for dear life to knock off the two-time defending champs on Monday, you might be wondering if the Sharks are one of the worst teams in the league at defending leads. That is mostly a yes.
It hasn’t come back to bite them yet, as the Sharks are 17-0-1 when leading after two periods this year, which is a nice reversal of fortunes from when they were historically terrible in that situation last season. But the underlying numbers are pretty ugly.
When leading this year, the Sharks rank 31st in the league in expected goals share at five-on-five at 36.5 percent. Their offense falls off a cliff, as they attempt the fewest shots and give up the most. After taking a 3-0 lead into the third period against Florida, for example, they lost the five-on-five expected goals battle 1.39-.26 in the final 20 minutes alone despite having an edge in that department after 40. At a certain point, they’re going to have to figure out how to put games away.
Celebrini is finally getting hit by the regression bug. He’s had an unsustainably high on-ice shooting percentage at five-on-five all season, and it’s down to a still-really-high 15.2 percent. In his last 10 games, Celebrini has four points at five-on-five and has been on the ice for six San Jose goals. But whether it’s driving play at five-on-five or producing on the power play, Celebrini’s going to make an impact regardless of if the puck is going in the net.
Also, one last Celebrini thing I’ve been keeping an eye on. Celebrini is playing more than ever right now, as he’s played at least 25 minutes in four games in January alone while coming close in a couple other games. He’s obviously got young legs — and the Sharks need him to play as much as possible — but you do also worry about running him into the ground before he’s even of legal drinking age in the States.
Stats are from Natural Stat Trick unless otherwise noted