We send Martin Jones back to 2016.
2020 Jones accidentally replaces 2016 Jones.
Sharks get trounced in round 1 of the playoffs.
Massive changes happen to the roster, leading to a far different team than what we have now
The now-terrible Sharks on the back of 2020 Martin Jones playing for them for the last 4 years win the draft lottery. But the pick had already been traded to Toronto as part of a desperation move to get Patrick Marleau back in early 2018 because things cratered even harder in this timeline.
Disgraced, Doug Wilson resigns as Sharks GM. Pete DeBoer (who has largely escaped blame for the fiasco of the Sharks last 4 years because they never advanced to the final. So all those "disappointing" years after were out of his hands since he was working with a faltering team) is named the new GM and will cover both GM and coaching duties.
After naming Dylan DeMelo, Melker Karlsson, and a strangely returning Brad Winchester as the new leadership group of the Sharks back in 2018-19, DeBoer outlines his plan to succeed by getting Martin Jones back to the level "I know he can play at" through having him start 75 games a season while backup Andrew Hammond (acquired from Ottawa for Chris Tierney and Rudolfs Baclers
) sees minimal playing time and has his poor performance used as a motivator for Jones because "you don't want to see me put Hammond in there, do you?"
It backfires spectacularly, and the Sharks finish the post-Coronavirus 2020-21 season with a 3-68-7-3 record for just 16 points, beating their own futility record from 92-93 by 8 whole points.
Not wanting to reward the Sharks terribleness with a high draft pick while they have the prestige of Seattle entering the league in the same draft, the Kraken are awarded the 1st overall pick without a lottery while the Sharks go into a lottery for the remaining non-playoff teams. They get passed by Anaheim, Los Angeles, and Vegas (who had previously acquired a pick from the non-playoff Oilers in a deadline deal) and will instead pick 5th.
Gary Bettman, deeply ashamed of the depths that the Sharks have sunk to after being a model franchise, immediately announces that the team will suspend operations and not play the 2021-22 season.
Without a team in the arena, the Sharks default on their financial obligations to the SAP center. Forced to file for bankruptcy the team is dissolved when no buyer can be found to purchase the team and its assets.
No longer existing, the franchise "license" that was owned by the Sharks to be part of the NHL is then bought by an ownership group in Quebec. The Quebec Nordiques are back.
The Nordiques make it to the Stanley Cup Final in 2023, their first year in existence, defeating the Vegas Golden Knights in a hard-fought 7-game series. The team that is inexorably sorta-linked to the demise of the Sharks proves that the old franchise was cursed since they were able to win a cup in 1 year of existence when the Sharks failed to do so in nearly 30.
On the bench as a member of Vegas' 4th line in that cup run, Joe Thornton announces his retirement. He does so without winning a Stanley Cup. The years of losing get the better of him during a trip with his family to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. When he tries to smash the case around the Stanley Cup display area, the guards are forced to escort him out while he screams "IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MINE! IT'S NOT FAIR! NONE OF THIS IS FAIR!"
For his conduct, Thornton is forever barred from entering the hall of fame building in any capacity. As a result, his name is stricken from the list of potential inductees 5 years hence.
Later that month, a magintude 9.8 earthquake strikes the bay area. Curiously, the only damage in San Jose proper is the vacant SAP Center, which collapses into a mass of concrete rubble.
The remains of the arena are bulldozed and the grounds converted into luxury jai alai courts.
Hockey is never again mentioned in San Jose. In the years that follow, people forget the Sharks even exist. And what minimal memories and evidence of the team's time in the league is warped and distorted until historians in 2436 look back at the curious existence of the "International League of Hockey" (believed to be a subsidiary of the globally dominant pancake consortium that ruled most of North America in that time) concludes that the 2006 Stanford Cuppe Successitors were the Steelington Pirate Penguins, who triumphed in a 12-game series over the hated Philadelphia Quakers.
Also Dylan DeMelo successfuly ran for both President of the United States and Prime Minister of Canada in 2056 after arguing both that the restriction of presidential nomination to US-born citizens and the strict 4-year election cycle are grossly unfair. He wins in both countries in a landslide with his "bagging groceries isn't so bad" platform and ushers in a new era of global peace and prosperity.
Secretary of State Peter DeBoer then awards the entire 2006 San Jose Sharks team (who are misidentified as being the Cleveland Spiders) the congressional medal of honor. Except Tom Heed. He knows what he did.
Do you want that? Do you want to be responsible for that happening? All just because you had to send Martin Jones back in time?
DON'T CORRUPT THE TIMELINE!