The Sharks lose to the Edmonton Oilers 5-2 in the final game of their 2022-23 season.
The Oilers scored the first two goals in the first period via Mattias Janmark and Leon Draisaitl, while the Sharks cut that early Oilers lead in half on Noah Gregor’s 10th goal of the season, setting a season-high in goals for Gregor. Thomas Bordeleau and Steven Lorentz were credited with the assists on Gregor’s 10th of the year.
Early in the second period, the Oilers got their two-goal lead back after Evan Bouchard put one in on a mostly empty net. Later in the middle frame, Edmonton extended their lead to three on Mattias Janmark’s second goal of the game on a shorthanded breakaway. Team Teal got one back before the conclusion of the second period after Steven Lorentz redirected a shot from Tomas Hertl right in front of the net for his 10th of the year. This also marks Lorentz’s first power play goal of his NHL career. It was initially given to Jacob Peterson, but it was later changed to Erik Karlsson picking up the secondary assist on this second goal for his 101st point of the season. EK65’s 101 points are the 13th-highest point total
The Oilers added one more goal late in the third period via Evander Kane to finish out the 2022-23 regular season.
James Reimer was given the start in what could be his final appearance in teal, recording a total of 31 saves.
And with that, the Sharks completed their 2022-23 season with a 22-44-16 record, good for 60 points, seventh in the Pacific Division, 14th in the Western Conference, and no worse than 30th overall in the entire league. This is the least amount of points earned by a Sharks team since they earned 47 during the 1995-96 season. Overall, it was mostly frustrating watching the Sharks in many games this season, but they certainly had their bright spots. Erik Karlsson had an unbelievable 100+-point campaign and should win the Norris Trophy, which nobody predicted at the beginning of the season and is absolutely amazing to see. We saw the further development of top prospect William Eklund, and Tomas Hertl and Logan Couture each had solid, productive seasons, to name a few more bright spots. However, the Sharks did as well as everyone expected them to this year, which was miss the playoffs and finish towards the bottom of the league. Towards the end of the season, once the Sharks were officially out of the playoff picture, I became more and more content with the Sharks losing as many games as possible to better position themselves to earn a top-3 draft pick in this year’s draft. May 8 is the draft lottery, and if it doesn’t result with the Sharks in a top-3 draft position, especially if it results in a generational talent like Connor Bedard or Adam Fantilli, then I will consider this season a failure for the Sharks.
Overall, I am relieved that this season for the San Jose Sharks has come to a close. The game reviews will return next season, but until then, I am excited for the Stanley Cup Playoffs and can’t wait to see what goes down during the second season. Expect a Stanley Cup Playoffs Predictions post on CPF Hockey in the next few days.
Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area/California, NHL App, Curtis Pashelka via Twitter
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