On paper, the San Jose Barracuda‘s season wasn’t great. They finished 8th in the Pacific Division, a single point out of playoff contention, and were 28th of 32 teams, league wide.
Success or Failure?
However, I spoke to JD Young, host of Locked On Sharks and contributor over at Inside The Rink, to dig into the season a little more, and find out why he’s arguing that the season was actually a success.
The San Jose Barracuda had a number of players playing in their first full professional season or first full professional North American season. They were one of the youngest teams in the league, and of the 45 players to suit up for at least one game this season, 17 of them were rookies, including highly touted NHL prospects like William Eklund and Thomas Bordeleau.
“That was the approach,” Young said via a Zoom interview last week. “The organization was trying to let these guys develop their own winning culture in the Barracuda, insulate them with some veterans […] But for the most part, it was very much the plan to let the young guys get used to North America.”
Missing the playoffs was obviously a disappointment to the young team, but they came very close, finishing the season with the same number of points as Tuscon, who finished in 7th place, and only two regulation wins behind. A single point would have put San Jose in the playoffs, and all you have to do to have a chance at the Calder Cup is make the playoffs.
That being said, they took a big jump in the standings this season. In the 2021-22 season, the Barracuda finished dead last in the Pacific in both points and points percentage, with 46 and .338 respectively. In the 2022-23 season, the Barracuda had 69 points and a points percentage of .479.
Why is that?
Well, one reason, according to Young, was the rookies.
Of the top five scorers for the Barracuda this season, only one of them was not a rookie or older than 22. Captain Andrew Agozzino led the team in scoring with 61 points in 64 games, but spots 2 through 5 went to 21-year-old Daniil Gushchin, 21-year-old Thomas Bordeleau, 20-year-old William Eklund and 22-year-old Tristen Robins. All of these players had excellent rookie seasons, and three of them spent time in the NHL, including Gushchin playing five games in six nights between the Barracuda and the Sharks. Not content with scoring in his NHL debut on April 1st, Gushchin would go on to play in the AHL on April 3rd (1G), the NHL on April 4th (1A) and then back to the AHL on April 5th (2G), April 7th (1A) and April 8th.
“Next year’s going to be the Gushchin show,” says Young.
Young sees Eklund as a full-time NHLer next season, having dipped his toes in the water for two consecutive seasons and improving night after night in both the AHL and the NHL, and thinks Bordeleau could be with the Sharks permanently by Christmas, but look for Gushchin and Robins to be big players this upcoming season. Add in depth rookies like Brandon Coe and Ozzy Wiesblatt to the mix, a young goalie like Eetu Makiniemi, and players like Filip Bystedt on the horizon, and the youth movement in San Jose is strong, and only going to get stronger.
