Look at literally every single Sharks game this year.
Aren’t you making a snap judgement about Zetterlund this season?
Maybe for Edmonton. Not for SJ. Only way we take Campbell is if you take Vlasic.
Devils fans judged Zetterlund based on being our AHL affiliate's leading scorer, having a strong call-up in 2022, and then forcing his way on to a really good roster in 2023 over more established prospects like Alex Holtz and performing quite well.
His entire body of work as a prospect and NHL player suggests he's a quality middle-6 winger. It's obvious that his debut in San Jose is an outlier when compared to the rest of his career, and Zetterlund himself has recently talked about how hard the trade was on him personally.
Yet Sharks fans were eager to dump on him because they were salty they didn't get Simon Nemec or Dawson Mercer, who they somehow convinced themselves they would get despite no historical precedent for that caliber of prospect being moved for a rental.
Same thing is happening now, but in reverse. You have a guy whose best trait is that he's not James Reimer or Kaapo Kahkonen, and all of a sudden he's a legitimate #1 after 10 games despite YEARS of evidence to the contrary.
Again - if he's standing on his head consistently between now and March, I will happily eat crow at the end of the year. But we've seen Blackwood look like a superhero in losses before. We've made excuses about how his numbers are actually much better than they look before. We've seen him refuse to accept responsibility, throw his teammates under the bus, and turn into a locker room malcontent before. But if you want to pretend everything is peaches and rainbows, go ahead, I can't stop you. Just consider yourself warned.
