San Jose lost 6-2, and both of its goals came from men with no NHL games
Pohlkamp and Huntington supplied both goals without an NHL appearance between them. Anaheim brought more experience and took 59 of the game's 96 five-on-five attempts.
Take San Jose's goal scorers from the preseason opener and look for their NHL appearances. Eric Pohlkamp has none, regular season or playoffs; Jimmy Huntington has none either. You can start understanding Sunday's 6-2 loss at Anaheim with the men who supplied San Jose's two goals.
Pohlkamp scored at 1:37, Huntington tied it in the second period, and Anaheim scored the remaining goals. Beckett Sennecke supplied the game's only power-play goal, 23 seconds into Anaheim's first advantage. The scoring table leaves little room to explain the margin through special teams, with five of Anaheim's six goals coming at even strength.
The attempts and the locations#
San Jose took 37 five-on-five attempts to Anaheim's 59. The count uses every shot event carrying the league play-by-play's situation code for five skaters a side with both goalies on the ice, including goals, saves, misses and blocks. The break-even share is 50% by construction, because every attempt belongs to a team. San Jose's 38.5% was 11.5 percentage points below it across 96 attempts in this game.
Now separate frequency from location. San Jose shot from closer by median straight-line distance from the recorded shot coordinate to the centre of the goal line, among five-on-five unblocked attempts. Blocks are excluded because their coordinates mark the block. Expected-goals figures are unavailable for this exhibition; the evidence here is attempts and distances, with no model weighting the chances.
San Jose's attempts came from closer
Five-on-five unblocked attempts, September 20, 2026; distances calculated from NHL play-by-play coordinates.
| Measure | San Jose | Anaheim |
|---|---|---|
| Unblocked attempts | 30 | 45 |
| Median distance | 27.6 feet | 38.8 feet |
| Within 25 feet | 12 of 30 | 13 of 45 |
| Beyond 40 feet | 10 of 30 | 21 of 45 |
The smaller median describes where San Jose's attempts originated without awarding them goals they did not produce. Anaheim had the volume advantage and it converted from further out. It won the first period 2-1 at five-on-five and the third 2-0, and drew the second 1-1, and two of its six goals in the game came from beyond 40 feet.
The lineup gap#
Sort the dressed Sharks by NHL regular-season games played in 2025-26, highest first. Then stop at the last man who reached 41 games, and you have this list:
- Sam Dickinson, first with 72 games.
- Zack Ostapchuk, second with 59 games.
- Ty Dellandrea, third with 46 games.
Anaheim dressed seven men who cleared that threshold. Summing the league player records for each club's 20 dressed players gives Anaheim 559 NHL games last season against San Jose's 218. That is 2.56 times the recent NHL games San Jose dressed.
Career totals widen the comparison to 3,058 against 994, but Alex Killorn and Mikael Granlund account for 1,992 of Anaheim's games, or 65.1% of its 3,058. Long careers can make a lineup look deeper than it is. The recent-season column tells you more about who was regularly playing NHL hockey when these camps began.
Both clubs held players back. San Jose's scratch list included Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith among 61 names; Anaheim's included Troy Terry and Lukas Dostal among 53. The cleaner comparison counts recent NHL regulars within the lineups actually selected, seven Ducks against three Sharks with at least 41 games in 2025-26.
The scorers' denominators#
Pohlkamp brought 39 points in 43 games for Denver last season; Huntington brought 48 in 71 for the Barracuda. Neither had an NHL appearance, and both supplied a goal and three shots on net Sunday. Their production has a history, even if the NHL column has yet to acquire an entry.
Ryan Warsofsky praised Pohlkamp's puck movement and use of his legs to escape trouble in Sheng Peng's September 20 report for San Jose Hockey Now. That observation belongs alongside a measured workload, without turning a preseason goal into a roster decision. The league boxscore gives Pohlkamp 18:31 and Huntington 17:08 in this game.
The arguments against the discount#
The lineup gap is a reason to narrow the conclusion about San Jose. There are still arguments against letting the selection explain away the performance:
- Experience does not erase territorial results. These dressed Sharks conceded 59 of the game's 96 five-on-five attempts.
- A closer median does not establish superior chances. San Jose and Anaheim had 12 and 13 unblocked five-on-five attempts within 25 feet, respectively, from totals of 30 and 45.
- Goaltending contributed to the margin. Eric Comrie stopped 14 of 16 shots and Matthew Davis stopped 12 of 16; both goals from beyond 40 feet came during Davis's time.
The combined .813 save percentage covers 26 saves on 32 shots, a sample too small to carry a verdict on either goalie. For scale, San Jose's three goalies posted .887 across 2,413 shots in the 2025-26 regular season. Keep the size of that comparison attached to it, an 82-game baseline against 32 shots in this exhibition.
My three stars#
The league awarded no three stars for this game. These are my selections, with workload putting Luneau at the top:
- Tristan Luneau, Anaheim. A goal and two assists alongside the most ice time among all 36 skaters, 25:31, which exceeded Jackson LaCombe's next-highest total by 3:33.
- Beckett Sennecke, Anaheim. Three goals on three shots on goal, from 17.0, 46.0 and 9.1 feet.
- Eric Pohlkamp, San Jose. The opening goal at 1:37 and a share of the Sharks' shots-on-goal lead, three in his 18:31.
Sources: NHL gamecenter scoring, boxscore, play-by-play and scratch list; NHL player records and 2025-26 goalie summary; Sheng Peng, San Jose Hockey Now, September 20, 2026.
