Pavelski and Hertl in Playoffs Represent How Sharks Went Wrong

In the following years, this decision proved to be the beginning of San Jose’s downfall. The Sharks have yet to return to the playoffs, while the Stars have reached the postseason four times and made the Stanley Cup Final in Pavelski’s first season. He scored 13 goals during that playoff run and continues to be nearly a point-per-game player even as he approaches his 40th birthday.

Meanwhile, the players the Sharks retained didn’t work out. Kane fell from grace with a series of scandals, leading to the eventual termination of his contract. Karlsson only managed one elite season in San Jose, providing excellent offense but poor defense. He failed to play up to his contract, which became one of several bad deals on the roster. The Sharks were unable to improve around the margins in part due to financial limitations, falling out of contention, and eventually cut their losses by trading him to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

While Pavelski plays in the playoffs for the 16th time in his 18-year career, the Sharks remain years away from getting back to the tournament with which they were once so familiar. To understand why, all they need to do is turn on the Vegas-Dallas series and watch their former captain continue to excel.

Hertl Trade Encapsulates Sharks’ New Direction

Nearly five full years after Pavelski walked, the Sharks turned up the dial on their rebuild even further by sending Hertl to Vegas in a major deadline deal. From the Sharks’ perspective, the trade currently looks fairly questionable. But the message is clear: the current front office regime, which is not the one that gave Hertl a massive extension in 2022, is shedding all remnants of the previous era.

Hertl represented the methodology that helped the Sharks achieve so much success for so long — draft well, then commit big money to key players whenever possible. This worked for a while, but it was bound to run out at a certain point. The bubble finally burst with Karlsson’s contract, and as the Sharks shifted focus, Hertl became a casualty along the way.

Hertl had the potential to be a veteran leader for the Sharks for a long time. But the front office decided that wasn’t in the franchise’s best interest. Now, he’ll be a critical player for a division rival — likely for years to come.

Sharks, Pavelski and Hertl in Very Different Places

The story of the Sharks’ rebuild is still being written, but Pavelski and Hertl are key characters in it. Their respective changes of scenery serve as bookends to the last five seasons of hockey in San Jose. Once members of contending Sharks teams, they now play for other contenders, both of whom are set up to contend for several seasons beyond the current one.

Game 1 of their current series, a 4-3 Vegas win, served as a painful reminder of what could have been. Hertl scored a goal, while Pavelski posted nearly 18 minutes of ice time as a member of Dallas’ top line.

Both the Stars and Golden Knights have built perennial Western Conference powerhouses — Dallas through homegrown players and shrewd acquisitions such as Pavelski, and Vegas through excellent expansion drafting and aggressive moves like trading for Hertl and his contract. Meanwhile, the Sharks are looking up at both of them from the bottom of the standings, hoping to return to the top in a few years. As Pavelski and Hertl demonstrate, it took a lot of specific steps to reach this current point, and it’ll take even more to reverse their fate once again.