The Sharks have done the hard part. They drafted a franchise centre who scored 115 points at 20, they have a second star arriving in Will Smith, and the forward group that looked barren three years ago now has genuine drivers at the top. Rebuilds do not usually produce that much talent that fast. What San Jose has not done is address the position quietly undoing all of it, and last season the numbers there were among the worst in the league.
| Goaltender | Games | Goals saved above expected | The read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yaroslav Askarov | 47 | -18.9 | Among the worst in the NHL |
| Alex Nedeljkovic | 40 | -1.2 | Roughly league average |
Yaroslav Askarov finished 18.9 goals below expected across 47 games. To put that in context, only a small handful of goaltenders in the league were worse, and the gap between Askarov and an average netminder is worth roughly six standings points on its own. San Jose allowed 290 goals while scoring 249, and a meaningful share of that differential was created in the crease rather than in front of it.
Why this specifically endangers the rebuild
Bad goaltending on a bad team is normally a footnote; the losses were coming anyway. What makes San Jose's situation different is timing. Macklin Celebrini and Smith are entering the years when a young core is supposed to convert promise into wins, and those seasons only arrive once. A crease giving away 19 goals turns games the kids should win into losses, teaches a young team that leads are not safe, and burns development years that cannot be recovered.
The Askarov problem is genuinely hard
The complication is that Askarov was supposed to be the answer. He arrived as one of the most highly regarded goaltending prospects in hockey, San Jose acquired him deliberately as the long-term solution, and organisations do not abandon that kind of investment after one poor season, nor should they. Goaltenders develop erratically, a 47-game sample behind a 48 percent team is a brutal environment, and plenty of eventual stars have posted ugly numbers early. Giving up now would be its own kind of mistake.
But the cost of waiting is real
Both things can be true, which is what makes this the sharpest question on the roster. Patience with Askarov is defensible development policy and expensive competitive policy, and San Jose has to decide which it is optimising for. The honest middle is to keep developing him while acquiring a genuine veteran stabiliser, someone capable of taking 40 starts and posting league-average numbers, so that the young forwards are not learning to play in front of a crease that concedes the game. Nedeljkovic at roughly average is not that; he is the definition of adequate.
What good goaltending would actually be worth
Run the arithmetic and the case for spending becomes obvious. Moving from Askarov's minus-19 to a league-average netminder is worth close to 19 goals, which is several wins, and San Jose has the cap space to buy that. For a team whose skater group is improving fast, the difference between conceding 290 and conceding 270 is the difference between another lottery finish and a season where the young core learns what winning feels like. That is not a marginal upgrade. It is the highest-leverage move available to this franchise.
The honest counter
The rebuilder's argument runs the other way and has merit. San Jose is not contending this season regardless of who plays goal, spending on a veteran netminder to win a handful of meaningless extra games is exactly the trap that keeps bad teams stuck in the middle, and the draft position lost might be worth more than the development gained. If Askarov is the future, giving him the runway to work through a difficult stretch is the whole point of a rebuild, and shielding him with a veteran could delay the answer by a year.
The comparison San Jose should be studying
There is a live case study one conference over. Chicago is running a rebuild on a similar timeline with a similar profile, a generational forward arriving alongside a supporting young core, and the Blackhawks got 10.9 goals above expected from Spencer Knight behind an even worse structure. The two teams are separated by roughly 30 goals of goaltending performance, which is most of the gap between a rebuild that is quietly working and one that is quietly leaking.
The lesson is not that Chicago is smarter; it is that goaltending outcomes swing rebuild timelines more than almost any other variable, and they are the least predictable thing a front office manages. A team can draft brilliantly, develop well, and still lose two or three years to a crease that does not cooperate. San Jose has executed the drafting and development part about as well as any organisation in the league recently. It is now exposed to the one variable that can waste all of it.
The available responses are limited but real. Acquire a competent veteran on a short deal, which costs money rather than assets and buys time for Askarov without abandoning him. Invest in goaltending development infrastructure, which is unglamorous and compounding. Or accept the risk deliberately, understanding that the plan requires Askarov to become what the scouting said he would. Any of those is defensible. What is not defensible is drifting into the season without having chosen.
Because the clock is genuinely running. Celebrini is 20, Smith is 21, and the seasons in which a young core learns to win are finite and non-renewable. San Jose has spent years accumulating the hardest assets in hockey to acquire. Whether that turns into a contender or a cautionary tale may come down to a position the Sharks have not yet solved and have not visibly tried to.
Where this lands
San Jose has assembled the expensive, difficult parts of a contender: a generational centre, a second star emerging, a forward group that drives play. It has done that while getting some of the worst goaltending in the league, which is the one thing capable of wasting all of it. Yaroslav Askarov may still become the goaltender the Sharks believed they were acquiring, and he deserves the chance to. But hoping is not a plan, and a rebuild this close to mattering should not leave its most important position to hope alone.