Will the 2023-24 San Jose Sharks go down as the worst NHL team of all-time?

Scott Maxwell
Scott Maxwell
Will the 2023-24 San Jose Sharks go down as the worst NHL team of all-time?
Credit: © Kim Klement Neitzel

It really is quite incredible how everyone expected the San Jose Sharks to be one of, if not the worst team this season, and they’ve still underperformed expectations.

It shouldn’t be a total surprise. After all, they were one of four teams with a .366 points percentage or worse last season, along with the Chicago Blackhawks, Columbus Blue Jackets and Anaheim Ducks. The Blackhawks added Connor Bedard, so they were bound to get better. The Blue Jackets added Adam Fantilli and were expected to be a lot healthier this season. The Ducks added Leo Carlsson and had the return of Jamie Drysdale from his year-long injury, along with other new veterans and rookies to rejuvenate their lineup. All three teams were expected to improve a little bit from their previous seasons.

The Sharks did not have the same type of offseason. They did make a bunch of additions, but none was really expected to be a difference maker for the team, and they also ended up getting rid of their biggest difference maker from last season in Erik Karlsson. Now suddenly a team that was already one of the worst teams last year with the best defenseman in the league was set to be without that defenseman with no immediate return in value.

Now, that’s not to say dealing Karlsson was the wrong choice. Already the Sharks cap sheet looks much better outside of Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Logan Couture’s contracts (and Tomas Hertl may be on the way there eventually), they got an extra first-round pick by moving on from Karlsson, and they have a few decent pending UFAs like Kevin Labanc, Mike Hoffman and Anthony Duclair that could fetch a solid return at the deadline. They got much worse, but unlike the other three really bad teams from last season, this Sharks team is on its decline to the bottom as opposed to on its way up.

Yet here we are, nine games into the Sharks season and they find themselves without a win. They’re also two games away from tying the NHL record for most consecutive losses to start a season at 11 (I know the NHL defines it as a winless streak because of the overtime loss, but I’m not calling it that), and it’s none other than Karlsson and the Pittsburgh Penguins that can give them loss number 11.

The Sharks currently have a .056 points %, with a 2-1 shootout loss to the Colorado Avalanche being the only thing keeping San Jose from being completely pointless. Should they keep up that pace, it will easily be the worst point% in NHL history, beating the 1974-75 Washington Capitals by .075%. They also rank last in goals for per game and third last in goals against per game.

Of course, they probably won’t finish at that pace. They only need to go 20-53-0 (or some variation of 40 points) for the remainder of the season just to get to a .250 points %, and even the worst teams can find some ways to win at that kind of a pace. But right now, they’re playing like a lottery team.

In fact, the pace that they’re playing at has almost exclusively only been achieved by lottery teams. Of the five teams to play a full season in the post-Original Six era and finish with below a .200 points %, only the 1989-90 Quebec Nordiques weren’t in the first two seasons of their franchise history, and let’s just say this pool of expansion teams isn’t exactly a good group for the Sharks to be compared to.

Teams with less than a .200 points % (since 1967)

TeamPts %Goals per Game (league rank)Goals Against per Game (league rank)
1972-73 Islanders.192%2.18 (16th of 16)4.45 (16th of 16)
1974-75 Capitals.131%2.26 (18th of 18)5.58 (18th of 18)
1989-90 Nordiques.194%3 (21st of 21)5.09 (21st of 21)
1992-93 Senators.143%2.4 (24th of 24)4.7 (23rd of 24)
1992-93 Sharks.143%2.6 (23rd of 24)4.93 (24th of 24)
2023-24 Sharks*.056%1 (32nd of 32)3.78 (30th of 32)

*only played nine games

If it’s any consolation for the Sharks, they are the only team in this group to not be ranked dead last in both goals for and against, not counting the 92-93 Sharks and Sens who were competing with each other that year.

Why judge it by league rank? Because the average goals scored per game in a season shifts on a year-by-year basis, never mind several decades. The Sharks’ horrendous defense this season would be a playoff team’s level of success in the 70s, so comparing them by their league rank at least gives the stats an equal baseline to work with.

Comparing this Sharks franchise to any expansion franchises doesn’t feel fair… for those franchises that were new at the time. After all, the Sharks have had 30 years to build this roster (in theory), while expansion franchises are all starting from scratch with every team’s table scraps. So, let’s take the Sharks and those 89-90 Nordiques and compare them to other franchises with at least five seasons under their belt who finished with under a .250 point%.

Teams 5+ seasons old with less than a .250 points % (since 1967)

TeamPts %Goals per Game (league rank)Goals Against per Game (league rank)
1973-74 Golden Seals.231%2.5 (15th of 16)4.38 (16th of 16)
1983-84 Penguins.238%3.18 (20th of 21)4.88 (21st of 21)
1985-86 Red Wings.250%3.33 (21st of 21)5.19 (21st of 21)
1989-90 Nordiques.194%3 (21st of 21)5.09 (21st of 21)
2023-24 Sharks*.056%1 (32nd of 32)3.78 (30th of 32)

*only played nine games

So, there’s a closer comparison with this group. The teams aren’t embarrassingly bad in every category, but they are still very bad, an example of how bad things can get for teams on the downswing even if they have history.

But the one issue with this kind of analysis is that we’re using the Sharks information based on a very small sample size, so it’s not exactly the most accurate to use. However, their underlying numbers have a slightly larger sample size to work with, so let’s compare them to the three worst teams of the analytics era, which began in 2007-08.

Teams with less than a .325 points % (since 2007)

TeamPts%5v5 Expected Goals per 60 minutes (league rank)5v5 Expected Goals Against per 60 minutes (league rank)
2013-14 Sabres.317%1.81 (30th of 30)2.53 (26th of 30)
2016-17 Avalanche.293%1.86 (30th of 30)2.32 (17th of 30)
2019-20 Red Wings.275%2 (31st of 31)2.6 (26th of 31)
2023-24 Sharks*.056%2.14 (32nd of 32)3.33 (32nd of 32)

*only played nine games

In terms of expected goals for and against, the Sharks may have reached a new level of bad amongst the worst teams of the analytics era. While every team was the worst in the league offensively in their respective seasons, they at least managed to not be the worst defensively. The Sharks, meanwhile, find themselves dead last in both categories.

In fact, since the beginning of the analytics era, no team has ever been the worst team in both expected goals for and against in the same season (the 2021-22 Arizona Coyotes were the worst in expected goals for, but were tied with the Montreal Canadiens for the highest expected goals against). If the Sharks keep up this play, they will easily be the worst in both.

If it’s any consolation for Sharks fans, all of these bad teams that I’ve mentioned were rewarded for their miserable seasons with a high draft pick. Not all of them landed with those picks, but these horrendous seasons got some of these teams Denis Potvin (Islanders), Mario Lemieux (Penguins) and Owen Nolan (Nordiques), and more recently Cale Makar (Avalanche) and Lucas Raymond (Red Wings). The draft is a bit of a crapshoot still, but if this continues, the Sharks can get the best chance at leaving this season with a future star for their team.

I’m basically just rubbing salt in the wound at this point, but not only are the Sharks a bad hockey team, they are looking like a historically bad hockey team. There’s plenty of time for this to change, but outside of Logan Couture, there isn’t anything coming to this team that hasn’t played a game already, and they will likely only get worse as they scrape off pieces for assets as the season goes along.

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