A milestone night for more than one member of the San Jose Sharks, Timo Meier appeared in his 300th NHL game on April 9, 2021. While he has fallen slightly out of favor with some fans, the Swiss-born forward has had quite a career already. He has never quite developed into the power forward everyone expected him to be, but he has continually improved over his first 300 games.
As the hockey world prepares for Patrick Marleau to break the NHL’s record for most games played, one can’t help but wonder who will be the next player to come near that massive accomplishment. Could it be Meier?
Meier’s Multiple Milestones and Moments
The former 2015 first-round draft pick has already reached several milestones in his first five years in the NHL.
Dec. 16, 2016, saw Meier make his NHL debut on the road in Montréal. He added his first NHL goal on his first shot, with that first shot being on Carey Price. He gave both the Sharks organization and fans plenty of reason to look forward to the next generation.
His 100th game took place on March 8, 2018, and his 200th at the beginning of the next season on Oct. 16, 2019.
Meier went on to score his first hat trick just a couple of months later, in front of an excited home crowd on Dec. 28, 2019.
Following the 2019-20 season, he then went on to receive Sharks Player of the Year honors. A selection that saw him join an incredible list of past and present Sharks.
Looking For a Little More From Meier
Per Natural Stat Trick, Meier has seen only a minor decrease in his Corsi-for percentage (CF%), but with only eight goals through 42 games this season, fans seem to feel he is not producing as expected. After three straight seasons of scoring at least 20 goals, those fans are not exactly wrong. To this point of the season, the fifth-year Shark has managed 25 points. While not the worst numbers of his career, it certainly has been a noticeable dip in production.
In truth, the 24-year-old has seen his CF% slowly decrease over the last three seasons. The 2018-19 season saw Meier end with a 56.27 CF% followed by a 52.77 CF% in the 2019-20 season. Currently, he sits with a 51.82 CF%, but number 28 has plenty of time to see that number improve.
While he is looking for an improvement in his point totals, 6.3 percent of his 128 shots have found their way across the goal line this season. This has been a significant decrease from his past three seasons, where he finished with at least 10 percent of his shots becoming goals.
At the moment, he has seen an average of 16:15 minutes of ice time a night. That is just over a minute less than his average TOI from the 2019-20 season.
Just two teams in the Honda West Division have managed to keep Meier off the goal sheet. The Colorado Avalanche and the Minnesota Wild have both generally had a decent amount of success against the team in teal over this unprecedented season. The Avalanche more so than the Wild, but who knows, if the Sharks’ forward can find some goals against them to help his team, maybe the tides will change.
Looking Forward
One can only hope that Timo Time has been enjoying his stay in San Jose. From his beginning in the Silicon Valley with the Barracuda in the AHL through signing his second NHL contract with the organization — a four-year, $6 million deal on July 1, 2019. He has seen some highs and lows with the Sharks, and hopefully, there will be many more winning moments to celebrate soon.
With the Seattle Kraken soon making their expansion draft selections, it’s hard to imagine the Sharks will leave Meier exposed. It just is not an impossible situation, and there will be many discussions the closer we get to July 21. While he would be a definite loss from the Sharks’ roster, it is possible that the Kraken would gain an incredible member, should the unthinkable happen.