For most teams, a six-game losing streak is cause for concern. That kind of run can cost a bubble team their playoff berth, and cost a high-end team a division title or a favourable playoff berth.

When the team suffering the six-game losing streak is the San Jose Sharks, those concerns are multiplied. When the streak takes place during the heart of the stretch drive, those concerns are multiplied again.

The Sharks are in some ways victims of their own success, as gaudy regular season numbers have made them a Stanley Cup threat entering the playoffs each and every year. Yet they’ve never made it to the finals, and since the lockout they haven’t made it out of the second round of the playoffs. Last year was the finest example of this trend: a 117-point season, the best in franchise history was combined with a first-round playoff loss, their worst showing since the lockout.

Key players are under the microscope, and tiny flickers in their offensive production become big stories because they are regarded with suspicion. Dany Heatley has 37 goals, but only one of them in the last six games. Patrick Marleau is fourth in the league with 41 goals, but has none in his last five games and collapsed down the stretch last season (which gave rise to the inaccurate notion that stripping the captaincy from him changed him as a player). The line of Heatley, Marleau and Thornton has exactly three goals over the last six games, and all of them are minus players during that span. Goaltender Evgeni Nabokov has had a string of disappointing performances, allowing 24 goals in his last six games and never giving up fewer than three.

That’s the brief version. The long version of the Sharks’ struggles (along with assigned blame!) can be found over at Fear The Fin. This is what happens when a strong team with playoff ghosts struggles and gets passed in their division by the ridiculous Phoenix Coyotes (owners of a nine-game winning streak).

The reality is that it doesn’t really matter, except insofar as it effects playoff seeding. The Sharks could be lights out the rest of the way, but regular season point totals are all but irrelevant for the team; they could have a perfect regular season but a first or second round playoff loss would mean changes in the off-season.

The other point is that a losing streak here means very little in terms of predicting playoff performance; the 2001-02 Detroit Red Wings were dominant all season but then slumped, winning only one of their last 10 games and losing their first two playoff contests to an underdog Canucks team. They won the Stanley Cup.

If the Sharks are going to struggle, they might as well do it now. This gives the coaching staff a chance to find problem areas and correct them now, before the games become elimination contests. The losses must have the players’ attention; surely they would be receptive to admonition. In many ways, this could be an opportunity to get the ship righted before the playoffs.

Shot-blocking might be a good place to start. The Sharks generally control things territorially, so they’ll always have lower than average numbers in this department, but over their last two games they’ve had a total of four blocks. Rookie Oilers defenceman Taylor Chorney, not renowned for his defensive play by any stretch, managed five blocks alone against them in his team’s 5-1 win, meaning he blocked more rubber in his one game on the third pairing than every Sharks skater combined over their last two losses.

There’s a lot of good in the Sharks lineup. They have a dynamic group of forwards, generally strong goaltending and haven’t been consistently good by chance. Now it’s up to the coaches to make the needed adjustments to get them winning in time for the playoffs, and up to the players to look at what’s happened over the last 10 days and take to heart whatever the coaches tell them.