{"id":132381,"date":"2022-10-02T10:59:44","date_gmt":"2022-10-02T14:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=132381"},"modified":"2022-10-02T11:05:08","modified_gmt":"2022-10-02T15:05:08","slug":"puck-drop-preview-2022-23-san-jose-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2022\/10\/02\/puck-drop-preview-2022-23-san-jose-sharks\/","title":{"rendered":"Puck Drop Preview: 2022-23 San Jose Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"
Last Word On Hockey\u2019s Puck Drop Previews are back for the 2022-23 season! As the regular season approaches, Last Word will preview each team\u2019s current outlook and stories to watch for the upcoming year. We\u2019ll also do our best to project how things will go for each team over the course of the campaign. Today, we\u2019re previewing the 2022-23 San Jose Sharks.<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n

2022-23 San Jose Sharks<\/h2>\n

Despite current appearances, the San Jose Sharks weren’t always a doomed franchise. They had reached the Western Conference Final in 2018-19.\u00a0 Indeed, until that season the Sharks have a very solid history, missing the playoffs just twice in 20 years. They did it so often that it became an expectation. San Jose became famous for its ability to retain the free agents they wanted and making Go-For-It trades. By the time 2019-20 happened, the wheels didn’t just fall off – they exploded.<\/p>\n

2021-22 Season<\/h3>\n

The good news is that the team’s highest-paid forwards led the team in scoring. Timo Meier<\/a>, Tomas Hertl<\/a>, and Logan Couture<\/a> came through with 35, 30, and 23 goals respectively. Defencemen Brent Burns<\/a> and Erik Karlsson<\/a> had bounce-back seasons, even if Karlsson’s only lasted 50 games. Veteran goaltender James Reimer<\/a> was decent in his return to San Jose, as was backup Adin Hill<\/a>. New arrival Kaapo Kahkonen<\/a> showed a lot of promise on arrival despite his 2-6-1 record.<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a>