Editor's note: This was published before Erik Karlsson announced that his wife gave birth to a baby girl, explaining his absence from Wednesday's season opener.
Red alert.
The Sharks looked terrible in their season-opening loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday. There's no way around it. And while it's irrational to jump to conclusions based on the first of 82 regular-season games, these are not rational times.
That's because one of the major positives you could point to from the Sharks' offseason -- re-signing All-Star defenseman Erik Karlsson to an eight-year contract -- was mysteriously missing from that lackluster opening-night effort, and that mystery has yet to be cleared up as of yet.