San Jose Sharks' Anthony Duclair (10) waits for a face-off against the Boston Bruins in the first period at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
SAN JOSE – Anthony Duclair will play his 500th career NHL game on Thursday night when the San Jose Sharks host the Vancouver Canucks.
“I’m so blessed,” Duclair said Thursday morning. “All I can think of right now is my family back home and all the sacrifices they made for me to live my childhood dream. Five hundred goes by pretty quickly.”
But considering Duclair’s contract status – and the Sharks’ dismal start to the season – it’s fair to wonder how many more milestones the winger will celebrate in San Jose.
One of the pressing questions Sharks general manager Mike Grier will have to answer in the coming months is how many of his pending unrestricted free agents he’ll try to sign past this season. That list is led by Duclair, who is in the final year of a three-year, $9 million deal and could net the Sharks a sizeable return prior to March’s trade deadline because of his speed and scoring pedigree.
Grier said at the start of training camp that he did see the value of extending some Sharks players who are in contract years, such as Duclair and fellow forward Alexander Barabanov, with an eye on potentially getting the team out of its rebuild sooner rather than later. Grier said then he would continue to evaluate those players to see if they would be a fit long term.
Whether the Sharks’ 0-8-1 start prior to Thursday has changed that approach is unclear. But for the Sharks to extract as much value as possible in a Duclair trade, they first need him to produce at a level commensurate with his past accomplishments.
Entering Thursday, the Pointe-Claire, Quebec native was on a five-game scoreless streak and had just one point, a goal, in his nine games, matching the slowest start he’s had from a production standpoint in his 10-year career. He had just 11 shots on net in those nine games, a steep drop-off compared to the 183 games he played from 2019-2022 when he had 455 shots and 130 points.
Duclair told this news organization earlier this week that like other players, the stress of not winning games or producing has taken a mental toll. Asked if being in a contract year adds to that uneasiness, Duclair said, “I’ve been in this situation before plenty of times. So, it’s nothing different for me, to be honest. I try to approach every year the same. It’s the same mindset every single year.”
“We’ve seen flashes of what I know he’s capable of doing,” Sharks coach David Quinn said. “Sometimes change is hard for people. I know he wants to be much more consistent (in playing) to the strengths of his game.
“Him playing to his strengths and playing with conviction, shift in and shift out, and being in a good spot mentally will allow him to be productive.”
Canucks coach Rick Tocchet, who coached Duclair in Arizona for the first half of the 2017-18 season, felt the winger hit his stride during his three seasons in Florida from 2020 to 2023, using a style of play that could help him going forward.
“I don’t want to say he took shortcuts. I just felt that he didn’t play to his potential, and then he played great,” Tocchet said. “He played unreal for the Panthers. I think he found himself.”
“He really played some great games, was on that big line (with Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau), had some big years. I saw him go to the net and I saw him go through the middle of the ice more than I had ever seen him. It’s a maturity thing. When you’re 18 or 19 coming into the league, it takes you a while to understand. But I think Duke’s got a lot of hockey left.”
SHARED EXPERIENCES: At the start of Duclair and Tocchet’s time together in Arizona, the Coyotes began the season with a 0-10-1 record, matching the longest losing streak to start a season in NHL history.
Both learned from the experience.
“My goal at the time was to just be in the lineup every day and try and have a roster spot,” Duclair said. “Now, 500 games in, it’s kind of a different mentality but the goal stays the same. You just want to try to be the best player you can be for your teammates. Once you see one guy working hard, it can be contagious and other guys kind of follow suit.”
The Coyotes snapped won their 12th game of the season, a 4-3 overtime victory over Philadelphia, and with a healthy No. 1 goalie back in Antti Raanta, had a more respectable 28-31-11 record for the rest of the season.
“I think you practice pressure, you have to practice it, and then when things happen on the ice, guys are used to it,” Tocchet said. “It’s just not one guy. It’s the coaches too. We’re all involved in it.
‘You have to have a short memory, especially when things don’t go your way. Look for positives, whether it’s 10 good minutes, whether it’s 15, you’ve got to think of positives because when the energy is low, and you don’t bring it, that’s when the losing streaks go. It’s hard, but everybody has to bring energy every single day, and it’s the hardest thing when you’re losing.”
Originally published at Curtis Pashelka