The San Jose Sharks have been beneath your notice for years. As this formerly stalwart franchise has missed the playoffs in six straight seasons, they've existed as a total non-competitive nothing that makes every aspect of the game as easy as possible for their opponents. While playoff-starved clubs like Buffalo and Detroit at least gave their fans some exciting streaks, and moments where the postseason felt within their reach, San Jose just loses, all the time, and not in fun ways. They haven't been able to score. They haven't had a good goalie. They put up a minus-105 goal differential last year, which was a whole 35 goals worse than the next team in Chicago. The Sharks of the last few years served no use beyond feeding talented guys in their prime to other teams, or volunteering as a dumping ground for contracts. It all sucked.
However, there is a long-term path to improvement in the NHL even during such a hopeless cycle of failure. That path is "Lose games, get lucky in the draft lottery, score some of the best young players entering the league." The Sharks have done quite a good job following this strategy, and as such they've assembled an extremely promising collection of young players who are starting to turn this team into, if nothing else, something redeemably watchable on a good night.
Six straight losses to start this season have since been overshadowed by what's now the most appealing Sharks record in several years: 8-6-3. A huge portion of the credit for that record goes to the fresh draft picks, who've made their value obvious over the course of this little four-game win streak they're currently enjoying. Facing the Wild in Minnesota on Tuesday, San Jose tied the game at 1-1 in the third period with a jaw-dropping showcase of power play passing that proved once and for all that five is more than four, and they went on to win in overtime with a goal orchestrated by three players with an average age of 20.
I can almost hear the first few notes of the Jaws theme as the puck goes in the net on this play, warning the rest of the NHL that the Sharks might be a little more dangerous than expected. Tyler Toffoli, a 33-year-old and one of the rare veterans on this team who could maybe be useful for a contender, is one of the guys in the build-up, but let's focus on the other three, because that's where San Jose is really gaining momentum. William Eklund, by far the eldest of this generation, was drafted in 2021 and converted from center to winger. He's still got plenty of time to develop, and he's a solid two-way presence who can make some sweet passes. Macklin Celebrini has the best name of them all, and he's living up to the hype as last year's No. 1 pick. The 19-year-old center is tied for second on the NHL's points leaderboard, and he's showing the skills, confidence, and high-impact playmaking of a kid you'd hand the keys to your franchise to. Meanwhile, right-winger Will Smith, the fourth overall pick from 2023 who actually scored on the sequence above, is also leaping forward in his second season, forming a 1-2 punch with Celebrini where he can consistently take advantage of the defense's unbalanced attention.
That's not all. Michael Misa, though he just got injured, was the No. 2 pick this year and already scored his first NHL goal. Sam Dickinson, the 19-year-old rookie defenseman, hasn't done anything too flashy yet but very much looks like he belongs in the Sharks' lineup for a full season. And Yaroslav Askarov, the charismatic and inexperienced goalie whom everyone in San Jose would just love to see become Evgeni Nabokov 2.0, is playing hot in a tiny sample size, allowing just five goals over his last four starts.
Does all this raw talent add up to a true threat to the top of the West? Not yet—not without a lot more depth or an elongated hot streak in net. But if you've been a glum inhabitant of the Shark tank this decade, I bet you can feel it starting to get fun again. There are going to be more nights to come where these kids play to their full potential and leave bite marks all over the other guys. And because they're still kids, there will also be losses of 5-1 and 4-0 to learn from. But that's fine. What matters is that the Sharks no longer feel worthless, and that's something to celebrate. And if you're a fan of another team, annoyed that an easy win on the schedule is no longer quite so simple ... well, there's always Calgary.
