San Jose Sharks: Who should be the team’s starting goalie?

The San Jose Sharks finally picked up their first two wins of the season, but the first six games have raised many questions and the goalie position is one of the many. Here is what you need to know about who should be starting.

It has been said the defense wins championships. In the National Hockey league, that is no different. For the San Jose Sharks, their defense has been spotty, and one position, in particular, has brought up some concerns.

The Sharks have not had a strong goalie in net since Evgeni Nabokov was patrolling the blue paint. While they have had many goalies that have gotten them closer than ‘Nabby’ did, nobody has been more consistent.

This season has been no different through the first six games.

Martin Jones, in particular, has been a little inconsistent to start the season and was one of the many reasons why the Sharks began 0-4. While Jones should not take all the blame for the Sharks’ poor start, we saw that Aaron Dell could come and start a game and perform well.

Dell has always been a bright spot of the Sharks goalie pair, but has yet to be given the opportunity he deserves to perform well in the NHL. Being the back up to Jones can not be easy as Jones will start more than half of the games no matter what happens.

We saw that last season as he started 62 games and ended the season with a record of 36-19. The win total was good, but the thing with Jones is that he is very streaky.

While he was able to win 36 games last season, he did not win those games in a way that helped the Sharks stay in the hunt for the top of the Pacific Division. We saw the Sharks go through two different seven-game losing streaks in which Jones was in net for most of it.

Although Dell did pick up a few loses, he showed us that he is just about ready to become a ligament candidate for the starting job here in San Jose.

Last season, for the Sharks, Dell was able to post a record of 10-8 in 20 games started. While the sample size was minimal in determining who should start in games, it was about the quality of starts.

In those 10 wins, Dell was able to secure two shutouts and for the season was able to have a goals-against-average of 3.48. In comparison to Jones, he had three shutouts and a goals-against-average of 3.58.

While the numbers are about the same in regards to goals-against average and shutouts, it is the massive difference in games played that makes Dell such an intriguing player. Dell was able to put up just about the same numbers in 26 fewer games.

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This season has been just the same, only with a lot smaller sample sizes. The first four games were Martin Jones’ games as he is the starting goalie for the San Jose Sharks.

Those first four games, as we all know, did not go the Sharks way, as Jones and the rest of the team still looked like they were in training camp mode. Since losing the first four games, Jones has started one other game and it was by far his best performance this season.

In the four games that did not go that well, Jones will be the first to tell you that there were goals that he would like to have back, but there were also goals that would have gone in no matter if he was on his game.

The four loses were not completely his fault, but one can only wonder if Dell was in goal whether one or two of those games would have gone the Sharks way. And if they did, we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion.

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Instead, the goalie position is in question, and fans are already demanding a change in net.

While I am usually someone who is for changing something when there appears to be something wrong, in this situation, we do not know how Jones will do in the upcoming weeks and months.

I say in three weeks if Jones is still struggling and the Sharks have not found their way, then yes, Dell has earned the right to have his name listed as the starting goalie more than just every five to six games.

Until then, it will Jones in goal and it will be up to him to make sure that he is going to continue being the starting goalie for the San Jose Sharks.