SAN JOSE — With his team stumbling out of the starting gate and playing below .500 at home, Sharks coach Todd McLellan acknowledged Monday that he’s aware his job could be in jeopardy.

“I feel confident with myself and the coaching staff, but I’m also a realist,” McLellan said. “I know that the team hasn’t performed to the level that any of us are happy with — not just ownership and management, but also coaches and players aren’t happy with the results.”

The Sharks started the season with 16 of 21 games on the road, going 10-9-2. At home, however, they are 2-3-2 after suffering shootout losses to the Florida Panthers and Arizona Coyotes to start a six-game homestand that continues Wednesday night against the Calgary Flames.

“I understand the business,” McLellan said, “but I can tell you that we show up for work every day and that we put our work boots on and we try to make this group better. And we will over time. We just have to keep at it and see where it goes from there.”

More than one national hockey columnist, including respected Pierre LeBrun of ESPN.com, has suggested McLellan, who has one year remaining on his contract, could lose his job if San Jose does not turn things around.

General manager Doug Wilson declined to respond to the outside speculation.

“We’re focused on getting some good practice time under our belts and the next game,” Wilson said.

After the Sharks suffered their epic playoff defeat to the Los Angeles Kings last spring, the general manager wasted no time in announcing that McLellan and the coaching staff would return this season.

While that created some stability, the offseason turned into one of mixed messages.

Wilson initially indicated his team was going through a rebuild and might have to take one step backward to take the next two forward. The general manager later noted that the process actually began at the 2013 trade deadline with the decision to go younger, though it was called a “refresh and reset” at the time.

And, Wilson later added, he and McLellan still expected the Sharks to make the playoffs.

The coach also had been presiding over the transition of locker room leadership, which Wilson said needed to happen. Eventually Joe Thornton lost the captaincy, though he and another former captain, Patrick Marleau, later were named alternate captains along with Joe Pavelski and Marc-Edouard Vlasic. On the ice, there were changes, too. Wilson announced that Brent Burns was moving back to the blue line after a full season at power forward. That transition has had mixed results, with Burns continuing to be an offensive force with 19 points while a minus-7 overall because of problems in his own end.

For whatever reason, the Sharks have looked listless and uninspired most nights — though McLellan took issue with that description.

“I would say the output is infrequent, it’s not consistent enough,” the coach said. “That’s concerning. When you look at the group as a whole, the level of battle can go up, the level of execution can go up. At the end of the day, we as a coaching staff are responsible for that, but the players also have to bring it.”

And what percentage of that falls on the coaches? How much is on the players?

“The minute you start breaking things down into who and what, I think it’s not a healthy thing for a hockey club,” McLellan said. “We’re in this together. The players and the coaching staff are all responsible for the product that’s on the ice.”

For more on the Sharks, see David Pollak’s Working the Corners blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/sharks. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/PollakOnSharks.