SAN JOSE – The day after the Sharks were blown out by the Utah Mammoth last month, coach Ryan Warsofsky said his team – desperate to get off to a fast start — was too focused on the result of winning, and not enough on the details of how to make it happen.
“So we’ve got to worry about – and every coach says it — the process, and the way we have to work and the way we have to play,” Warsofsky said Oct. 18, “and (victories) will come with that.”
Now the Sharks have a blueprint for what makes them successful.
Since that 6-3 loss to the Mammoth on Oct. 17 in Salt Lake City, the Sharks have switched from a 1-1-3 alignment to a much faster, more aggressive 2-1-2 forechecking style. The move has allowed the Sharks to utilize their speed and create a few more high-danger scoring chances, while preventing fewer grade-A opportunities for opposing teams at the other end.
With that has come what everyone in teal wanted from the start — more wins. Since a 0-4-2 start, the Sharks,“You ask any player, they don’t like being under pressure.
The Sharks are still sporting a modest 3-6-2 record, but the eight points they have after 11 games actually represent their best start to a season since the 2021-22 season, when they began 6-4-1.
“I think our strength is we’re young and we’ve got some guys with some juice in this room,” Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro said. “Using our skating and being as aggressive as possible, what we’ve been doing — obviously being smart while we’re doing it — but our aggressive play has really helped us so far.
“Since we’ve been playing better with that, we haven’t changed a thing.”
In beating the New Jersey Devils 5-2 on Thursday, forwards Alexander Wennberg and Philipp Kurashev each had a goal and an assist, and goalie Alex Nedeljkovic made 29 saves in his best performance of the season.
Macklin Celebrini assisted on Will Smith’s second-period goal that gave the Sharks a 4-1 lead and now has five goals and seven assists in a career-long six-game point streak, as the Sharks earned their first win on home ice this season.
Celebrini now had 17 points in 11 games, becoming just the fifth teenager in the past 15 years to record 17 or more points in a single calendar month. The others were Connor McDavid in February and November 2016, Clayton Keller in March 2018, Andrei Svechnikov in November 2019, and Connor Bedard in March 2024.
That Celebrini’s hot streak began soon after the Sharks made the change to a less conservative forechecking style probably isn’t a complete coincidence.
“I think it helps just not sitting back as much, not giving (teams) free entry,” Celebrini said. “Putting a little bit more pressure, turning over more pucks, I think it helps us just get possession.
“You ask any player, they don’t like being under pressure. So I think the more pace and pressure we can put on the other team’s players or defensemen, it helps us get more possession time.”
Since a 3-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Oct. 18, a game they controlled for the final two periods, the Sharks have gone 3-3-0, with the three losses by a combined four goals.
“I think you can see in these last couple of games, we’ve come out pretty strong, come out really fast, gotten the first goal,” said Sharks goalie Alex Nedeljkovic, who made 29 saves Thursday. “We’re in games. There haven’t been a lot of games this year, maybe like one or two, where we didn’t really have it that night, and we didn’t really have a shot.”
The Sharks’ next few games will offer a stiff test. After Saturday’s game against the Central Division-leading Avalanche, the Sharks face the Atlantic Division-leading Detroit Red Wings on Sunday. That’s followed by games against the improved Seattle Kraken, the Winnipeg Jets, last season’s Presidents’ Trophy winners, and the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.
“We’ve definitely taken steps in that process, of what it looks like to win, and what it feels like, what it takes, and how hard you have to work, the details you need to play with,” Warsofsky said. “We still have a ways to go, but our group is definitely taking the teaching and the coaching of what it takes, and our guys are growing it with that as we go.”
DICKINSON UPDATE
Sam Dickinson was still with the Sharks as of Friday afternoon, as the team didn’t make any announcement about whether they would keep the rookie defenseman on the NHL roster to the Ontario Hockey League. Dickinson played his ninth game of the season on Thursday and had 14:23 in ice time, all at even strength, as he played on the Sharks’ third defense pair with Shakir Mukhamadullin.
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If the Sharks play Dickinson in a 10th game, they would burn the first year of his three-year entry-level contract, making him eligible for restricted free agency – and a likely significant pay rise — following the 2027-28 season. The Sharks also have the option of loaning Dickinson back to his major junior team, the London Knights.
INJURY UPDATES
Sharks winger Ryan Reaves will not be available Saturday after he sustained a lower-body injury in the second period of Thursday’s game. Reaves had a second-period breakaway and got a shot on goal as he fought off a check from Devils winger Paul Cotter, but tripped over Allen’s glove and fell hard on his back. Reaves did not return for the third period. … Defenseman Nick Leddy (upper body) practiced Friday but will not play Saturday, Warsofsky said.
