SAN JOSE — Thirty-two games into their schedule, the Sharks have looked like two different teams.

The first was so-so at best, going 10-10-4 to open the season with a daunting, road-heavy schedule. If the season had ended then, the Sharks would not have been in the playoffs.

The second is on a 7-1 roll with two more games left on what already is a 3-0 homestand before they have to get on another plane. And, yes, they now would have a spot in the post-season.

While players dismissed the idea it helped to put a little distance between themselves and the events of a tumultuous summer, Coach Todd McLellan did include that in his list of thing the team had to contend with early on.

“There are circumstances that we dealt with over that period,” he said of the first segment of the season. “We dealt with recovering from the playoffs. We dealt with an offseason.”

Later he added: “We had a lot of things that we had to work through as a club. I feel like we’re a closer group right now.”

But McLellan also made it clear he thought the future, not the past, was key.

“Where do we go from here? What happens next? Do we maintain the standards that we’ve set over the last two weeks individually and collectively?” he asked. “I’d like to think so, but we’ve got to play some games and we’ve got a tough schedule coming up the next three weeks against teams that are big, strong, experienced.”

The Sharks do have their third meeting over a five-game stretch with the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday night before facing potential playoff foes the next six games.

Players offered different explanations for the split personality the team has shown so far.

Defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic refused to blame the fact the team opened with 16 of its first 21 games on the road, saying the bigger problem then was the five games at home where San Jose went 2-3. And he said that all teams — not just those dealing with a playoff collapse — go through a breaking-in period.

“Normally, at the beginning of the season I think it takes 15-20 games for all the teams to get all their players and all their systems down,” Vlasic said. “And now you’re starting to see that from us. Maybe it took 30 games, maybe 25.”

Like Vlasic, Logan Couture rejected the idea there was any kind of carryover from events of the summer that, among other things, saw Joe Thornton lose the captaincy. But Couture thought the schedule was a contributing factor to the slow start.

“Playing on the road in this league is difficult to begin with. When you’re playing long road trips, it isn’t easy. You get tired,” Couture said. “It was difficult for us.”

Still, he added, he didn’t think the team was in trouble after going 3-4 on a seven-game trip in November to finish those first 21 games at 10-9-2.

“I know the outside world didn’t think we did, but I thought we did a great job on that road trip,” Couture said. “We knew when we got home we’d be fine and people are starting to realize that now.”

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.