Ty Dellandrea Killed More Penalties Per Night Than Any San Jose Forward

Here is one instruction, and it is most of the opening.

Take the seventeen forwards San Jose dressed last season with a real even-strength sample, everybody except the two who played ten games between them. Sort them by expected goals against per sixty at even strength, worst first, and write down the name on top. Now sort the same seventeen by shorthanded minutes per game, most first, and write down the name on top of that one.

It is the same name twice. Ty Dellandrea, at 2.98 expected goals against per sixty at even strength, the highest figure in the group, and at 2.57 shorthanded minutes a night, also the highest figure in the group. He posted both inside the same 46 games, on MoneyPuck's splits.

That is the player, and it is why a countdown ending at Macklin Celebrini starts here. He is twenty-fifth not for his ceiling but because the club decided he is good at the exact job it was worst at last season, while the same season says he was bad at the ordinary one.

The contract#

Two years at $1,625,000 a season, signed March 13, 2026, no trade protection, unrestricted free agency in July 2028. He turned 26 in July. Dallas took him thirteenth overall in 2018 and traded him here in July 2024. The absence of clauses is the point: he can be moved in February for a pick and nobody has to sign off.

Usage against output#

Nineteen forwards dressed for San Jose last season. Sort them by ice time per game and Dellandrea comes tenth, at 14:11.

Now sort the seventeen who played twenty games or more by shots on goal per game, fewest first. Ryan Reaves at 0.50. Zack Ostapchuk at 0.75. Barclay Goodrow at 0.80. Then Dellandrea, at 1.09.

Nine forwards played more than he did and three shot less. Erika Towne noted at Fear the Fin in June that the one-shot-a-game rate is four seasons old: 50 shots in 46 games last year, 50 in 68, 53 in 42, 92 in 82. Eleven points is what comes out the other end.

Best case#

The best case has nothing to do with points.

San Jose's penalty kill finished 28th at 75.8 percent, and those minutes are about to move: Mario Ferraro led the whole team in shorthanded ice time and signed in Winnipeg. Of the six San Jose forwards who logged 50 or more shorthanded minutes, Dellandrea's 2.57 a night was the most, ahead of Collin Graf at 2.42, Alexander Wennberg at 2.05 and Goodrow at 1.89.

He was good at it, too, which is what separates this from minutes trivia. Shorthanded, San Jose allowed 7.46 expected goals against per sixty with him on the ice, against 8.58 with Wennberg and 9.00 with Goodrow. Among regular forward killers, only Graf was better.

So the best case is a kill that climbs out of 28th and a reader who can name the reason. He won 51.9 percent of his faceoffs, the best mark on the roster among players taking 100 or more draws by Towne's count, and he shoots right where Celebrini, Wennberg, Michael Misa, Ostapchuk and Goodrow all shoot left. That has an obvious use in the last ninety seconds of a one-goal game. Professor Hockey's public board, published August 12, has him at four points across the new 84-game schedule. That number is his, not this desk's, and four points would be a fine season for the player just described.

Worst case#

The worst case is not that he is bad. The worst case is 14:11 again.

A roster can carry its leakiest even-strength forward at nine minutes a night. At fourteen it is paying for the leak, and fourteen is what last season paid. A January injury then cost him most of that year, and he returned for four games in April without a point.

Injury is the mechanism, not preference. If a center goes down in November and Dellandrea slides up instead of a call-up sliding in, San Jose is spending top-nine minutes on the man whose even-strength rate was the worst it had. He is also not a free shuttle: he must clear waivers to reach the Barracuda, so the cheap correction a younger player offers is not available here.

The three arguments against me, and the first one is real#

1. Forty-six games is forty-six games. Every rate above is divided by a denominator with a January injury inside it and four pointless April games on the end. A healthy season could look different.
2. An on-ice rate is not an individual one. He spent more than a hundred minutes alongside Jeff Skinner, whose own 2.83 was second worst in the same seventeen. Some of that 2.98 belongs to the men beside him.
3. The projections do not treat him as a thirteenth forward at all. DailyFaceoff's published lines from July 4 put him on the fourth line with Tyler Toffoli and Ostapchuk. Those lines predate the Celebrini and Graf signings and nothing is settled until camp, but if that is the deployment, fourteen minutes a night is not a risk. It is the plan.

What to watch in October#

Shorthanded time on ice, in the box score, per game. Above two minutes a night and he has the job the club paid for. Under a minute and the kill went to somebody else.

Then the faceoff dot in the last two minutes of a one-goal game. Ostapchuk shoots left and won 51.6 percent of his own draws, three-tenths behind Dellandrea, so two men are competing for the same specialist work with nearly the same result.

Last, the position line. He is a center who has played the wing. If he lines up on the right side of the fourth line rather than in the middle, Ostapchuk won 4C and the faceoff argument goes with it.

The stakes#

San Jose has not made the playoffs in seven seasons, since 2018-19, and this is the first year the roster makes the question live. A team on that edge does not lose a playoff spot at the top of its lineup. It loses one on a kill that finishes 28th again. Dellandrea is the floor, and the floor is where a season like this gets decided.

Sources: MoneyPuck 2025-26 even-strength and shorthanded splits; NHL.com San Jose Sharks roster and 2025-26 statistics; PuckPedia and CapWages contract pages; Fear the Fin, Erika Towne, June 9, 2026; DailyFaceoff projected lines, July 4, 2026; Professor Hockey's 21-player projection board, August 12, 2026.