You don't win at any level playing like that. You don't beat any type of team playing like that.
Those were the words of San Jose head coach Todd McLellan after his talented but inconsistent Sharks fell to the lowly, NHL-worst Buffalo Sabres 4-1 on Tuesday night, their third loss to a sub .500 team on their recent road swing, according to Curtis Pashelka of the San Jose Mercury News.
Do the Sharks, now 10-9-2 and in fifth place in the Pacific Division, need to enact some changes aimed at finally getting the most out of all the seemingly wasted talent on the roster?
"We all know how the food chain works in the NHL: GM starts to sweat, fires head coach as his last stand, ownership waits for a slip up to fire GM," wrote Tim Chiasson of Hockeybuzz. "Now is the time to put those wheels in motion."
San Jose's early season schedule has not been particularly friendly. They played 16 of their first 21 games on the road, so the fact that they emerged from that stretch with a winning record is admirable.
But, as Chiasson noted, there is something wrong with the chemistry of a team that boasts players like Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Logan Couture and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, but still doesn't consistently win.
While it may be the players' fault to some extent, they're not the ones signing checks or constructing the roster.
"The misuse of players and amount of one-way contracts to ineffective veterans have handcuffed this team this year and that's not the players' fault. The finger points squarely in the face of Doug Wilson and Todd McLellan."
Wilson and McLellan have a strong relationship, as evidenced by Wilson's decision to keep McLellan in place, despite last season's meltdown in the first round of the playoffs that saw the team cough up a 3-0 series lead to the eventual Stanley Cup-champion, Los Angeles Kings.
Grizzled veteran and former captain, Thornton, often takes a lot of heat, both inside and outside the organization, for the team's failings - and oh boy, did he ever take a bunch for that playoff debacle - but it may be high time for the Sharks to stop blaming him and start looking themselves in the mirror.
They'll play 11 of their next 13 games at home, and if their record and overall play isn't vastly improved by the end of that stretch, Wilson may have no choice but to start looking around the league for help, or start filling out pink slips.
