The Sharks have loads of cap space. Here’s how they’ll spend that money

NHL: San Jose Sharks intend to be better next season, but how will they get there?

SAN JOSE – The San Jose Sharks intend to be a better team next season after they finished this year with the NHL’s worst record.

Step One is preventing opposing players from believing it’ll be a point night whenever they arrive at SAP Center — or gleefully see Team Teal come into their building.

For a variety of reasons, the Sharks were the worst 5-on-5 team in the NHL this season, allowing a league-high 226 goals, while scoring a next-to-last 119. On average, in all situations, they allowed roughly 10 more shots per game (35.1) than they took (25.2) – the NHL’s widest discrepancy.

Few would argue the rebuilding Sharks were hard to play against.

“There were just way too many nights where we didn’t look like we belonged on the ice with the other team,” Sharks center Nico Sturm said, “and that’s the truth of it.”

Maybe the issue was puck management, game management, the lack of talent to possess the puck more, the lack of know-how and confidence to prevent small deficits from becoming big ones, a size disadvantage, or simply inexperience in some cases.

What it cannot be, in the eyes of the Sharks captain, is a lack of will.

“Every single guy on the ice, you need to have pride to not give up goals,” Logan Couture said. “It’s not just about scoring offense in the NHL. Everyone comes into the NHL and they produce at whatever level they played at to get to this point. Very few of those players had to play defense. They could just outscore their opponents.

“So you have to learn how to defend and you have to want to defend and unfortunately this year, we didn’t have the want or the pride in keeping the puck out of our net. Obviously, it reflected on the scoreboard every single night.”

The Sharks hope to solve that, at least to some degree, this summer.

Unlike recent years, the Sharks now have tens of millions of dollars in salary cap space available this summer to make personnel changes. But no one should expect general manager Mike Grier to hand out long, expensive contracts to top-of-the-line free agents.

At this stage of the Sharks’ rebuild, Grier correctly feels that wouldn’t make much sense.

Followers of the team can expect Grier to use some of that money to acquire players – on the back end and up front – who can help establish the tougher identity the Sharks so desperately need.

“We’ll go after the players we think kind of fit the mold of what we want the identity (to be),” Grier said Saturday. “So it’s nice to have that ability, to (spend) some money to go do that and have the space where they can kind of see where they could fit in the lineup.

“So whether that’s this offseason — or next offseason — I think we’ll have the ability to hopefully get in on some players that we want.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean going out and finding the biggest guys in the league – although the Sharks certainly believe some extra size would not be a bad thing.

It’s finding forwards who know where to be on the ice and can bring something to the table when they’re not scoring goals. It’s defensemen who can end plays in their own zone, make the right reads and an accurate outlet pass, and not get caught watching the puck as it zips around the Sharks’ goal.

It’s guys who can pressure the puck all over the ice.

Acquiring players who have those habits, from the Sharks’ standpoint, will positively affect the team’s younger players, thereby building the culture the team has strived to attain since Grier’s first day on the job.

“A lot of it is DNA driven,” Sharks coach David Quinn said of being harder to play against, “but it’s also a culture and attitude amongst the group that can draw it out in young players.”

As the Sharks’ season started to spiral, there were times when some players — not all, but some — were looking to pad their stats rather than committing to the wider team concept. Predictably, it did more harm than good.

Players and coaches know this approach can’t happen going forward if the Sharks want to build this the right way.

“When seasons get tough like this and you’re competing for jobs, there are guys that don’t know if they’re going to be here, guys are trying to find a way to look good themselves, and that can’t happen,” Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro said. “That’s never going to happen on a winning team.”

Playing a smarter, sounder, all-around team game should make things a bit easier for their goalies, too, as the Sharks allowed a league-high 2,881 shots on net this year. Of the 12 best shot suppression teams in the NHL, nine made the playoffs.

“Individually, guys are going to have to buy into whatever system we decide to play,” Sharks goalie Mackenzie Blackwood said. “So whatever the coaching staff decides that they want to start the year with, it’s on everybody to buy in 100% and be committed to playing that style.

“I think once maybe we can get everyone on the same page, it’s going to lead to a lot of (good) things.”

None of this guarantees the Sharks will be vastly improved next season. But this is a huge phase of the rebuild and the Sharks have an idea of how they want to proceed.

“You need to have players that want to do it,” Couture said. “I think there’s guys in here that do, but you need to have that pride where you’re going to go on the ice and not get scored on.”