Back home with Blackhawks, Sharp insists he's 'ready to rock'
Eight goals. Thirty-four victories. No postseason.
For Patrick Sharp, a three-time Stanley Cup champion and a proven goal-scorer, those are some numbers and facts that leave a pit in your stomach and a bad taste in your mouth.
But that's what happened with Dallas last season as Sharp managed just 8 goals in 48 games and watched the Stars struggle through a 34-37-11 campaign. The 35-year-old winger then sat at home recovering from hip surgery when the Stanley Cup playoffs began in April.
Sharp said it was "by far" the most difficult season of his career.
"We had high expectations and fell way short," he said. "It's good to go through that every once in a while.
"We had it pretty good for a lot of years in Chicago - winning the conference, winning Stanley Cups. Sometimes it's good to learn those lessons on the other side and motivate you that much going forward."
So to Chicago he returns, back to a city he loves, an organization he loves, with teammates he absolutely loves to play with - and 100 percent motivated to get the Hawks back to the promised land.
"Spent a decade here," Sharp said. "I feel like this is where I can play my best."
It wasn't like Sharp was bad in Dallas. Far from it, actually.
He scored 20 goals in 2015-16 and helped lead the team to the top seed in the Western Conference. The Stars reached the second round, where they were bounced by the St. Louis Blues, in part because of spotty goaltending. Last season, Sharp battled a concussion and played in just 11 of the first 37 games as Dallas stumbled to a 16-14-7 record.
Then years of wear and tear on his hip caught up with him, and Sharp shut it down on March 25, two days after the Stars lost to the Hawks in a shootout at the United Center.
Despite the bumps in the road, Sharp wants to prove age is just a number and he can still be a reliable scoring force.
"Physically I'm strong, fast and ready to rock," Sharp said. "It doesn't matter how old you are."
The smart money has Sharp starting the season on a line with Patrick Kane and either Nick Schmaltz or Artem Anisimov, but Sharp could also slot into the third line, much the way Marian Hossa did at the end of last season.
Sharp says he doesn't care where coach Joel Quenneville plays him - that he just wants to win. Take one look at Sharp's contract if there's any doubt on that front - he signed a one-year deal for $800,000 in base pay after averaging $5.9 million the previous five seasons.
"Being away from here, he realizes how special it was and it is," Quenneville said. "He wants to make an impact with our team right off the bat. Obviously he can make us a deeper team and a better team in a lot of ways. The incentive with him of being back in Chicago has got to be everything."
So while the faces aren't all the same - gone are players such as Marian Hossa, Bryan Bickell, Kris Versteeg, Marcus Kruger, Johnny Oduya and Niklas Hjalmarsson - Sharp returns knowing he can be himself, feel comfortable and perhaps poke fun at a Hawk superstar or two along the way.
"Yeah, feels like I never left in that area," he said. "It's always fun to take jabs at (Jonathan Toews) and Kaner, of course.
"It's one of the reasons why I wanted to come back and be a Hawk again, is because they're my best friends in hockey, the guys I've played so many years with.
"I just feel comfortable being on the team."
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By the numbers
Patrick Sharp's NHL scoring stats for the past four seasons:
Season, team GP G A Pts.
2013-14, HAWKS 82 34 44 78
2014-15, HAWKS 68 16 27 43
2015-16, Dallas 76 20 35 55
2016-17, Dallas 48 8 10 18
Source: NHL.com