SAN JOSE — The Sharks’ success was as soon as so fixed, so dependable, so predictable, that they ran out of room to hold their accolades.
With twenty playoff appearances in 24 years, the Sharks actually stuffed up a whole banner at their observe facility, prime to backside, with their postseason berths.
It was such regular excellence that the staff needed to fee a brand new banner simply to maintain up.
They hung it after their twenty first playoff berth in 2019. It was a contemporary slate that was made to be stuffed as shortly as the primary banner.
And but “2019” — small font, identical to all of the years on the primary banner — sits there alone six years later.
Everyone knows the deal. The drought arrived shortly, and the Sharks didn’t battle it lengthy. Darkness earlier than the sunshine, proper?
However it’s additionally been rebuild so deep, so thorough, so painfully methodical that you can nearly mistake it for a everlasting state of being.
Hear, now’s not the time to get impatient. Fortunately, nobody is demanding a Stanley Cup parade down Santa Clara Avenue in June of 2026.
However how about shocking the league and being able to speak about making this yr’s match?
How about giving 2019 some firm someday quickly?
Gavin McKenna — the surefire No. 1 choose within the 2026 NHL Draft — is a hell of a prospect, but when he’s drafted by the Sharks, can or not it’s due to absurd lottery luck, and never a well-earned comfort prize?
Rebuilds are bought as a way to an finish.
The tip shouldn’t be a legendary, unseen place shifting ahead — it wants to start out coming into focus for San Jose.
Sure, six years is sufficient. It’s time for the Sharks to maneuver to the stage past rebuilding.
Name it feistiness, pluckiness, or simply downright competitiveness — the second has come for the Sharks to show the promise of the final half-decade right into a semi-frequent actuality.
As a result of dropping can turn into a behavior, and it’s a tricky one to interrupt.
It’s additionally the form of behavior that, itself, can break even probably the most proficient, can’t-miss gamers.
And to the Sharks’ credit score, they comprehend it.
“It’s simply time to start out constructing right here,” ahead William Eklund stated final March. “Me, personally, I feel it’s time to cease dropping. I wish to win, and I’m sick of dropping.”
That sentiment was shared throughout the board with Sharks gamers who spoke to the media on Thursday after the primary day of coaching camp.
The expectation is progress. Meaning one thing like a 10-win soar. It’s about beating somebody — or someones (taking a look at you, Geese, Kraken, and Flames) — within the Pacific Division standings.
It’s about “doing the issues we discuss,” Eklund stated Thursday.
Sure, this is likely to be the yr earlier than the breakthrough, however with out taking that step ahead, the breakthrough won’t ever come. (Simply ask the Buffalo Sabres, who haven’t made the playoffs since 2011.)
“There’s just one spot to go, and that’s up,” ahead Tyler Toffoli — who is likely to be the Sharks’ subsequent captain — stated. “I feel we’re all on the identical web page and we don’t wish to be in that [last-place] place once more.”
Fortunately, it is a staff that has sufficient to truly flip that nook — the expertise is in place within the South Bay.
All that distress has became Macklin Celebrini, who is 2 Junes away from having the ability to drink a beer in the USA legally, however is the form of expertise that may rating 100 factors in an NHL season earlier than that occurs.
“He obtained a style of it final yr,” Toffoli stated. “The one factor that basically stands out to me — you guys don’t get to see it — he hates to lose, greater than anyone. I feel he’s placing lots of strain on himself to show issues round right here, and his work ethic, simply in observe, ought to assist that.”
It’s became Will Smith, 20, whose second-half surge (32 factors in his final 42 video games, adopted by notching seven assists for the USA en path to a gold medal on the World Championships), confirmed that he is usually a very efficient Robin to Celebrini’s Batman.
“We all know how lengthy it’s been and what the followers right here deserve,” Smith stated.
It became the unique wunderkind, Eklund, who signed a three-year, $16.8 million deal and is poised for a 20-plus purpose season.
“It’s [about] closing the video games we’ve been near successful,” Eklund stated. “There have been lots of video games we had been in final yr that we’ve to show these into wins.”
It became the highest goalie prospect within the recreation, Yaroslav Askarov, acquired final yr for a first-round draft choose.
And with 11 losses in a row to finish the 2024-25 season, it became ahead Michael Misa, the No. 2 total choose on this previous summer time’s draft.
“There’s a motive he put up 300 factors final yr,” Barclay Goodrow stated of Misa (who scored a mere 134 factors in 65 video games within the junior OHL final season). “He’s extremely expert… It’s going to be particular to look at him.”
In fact, there are nonetheless questions on ahead depth and the blue line, however with sharp veteran additions this offseason to bolster the 23-man roster, the Sharks’ top-end expertise— even when a lot of that expertise is younger and never even shut to totally realized — must be sufficient to maneuver them out of the basement for the primary time
Lest anybody begin to turn into too snug down there.
“We’re kinda performed handing out alternatives simply since you’re a first-round choose or possibly there’s nobody else,” head coach Ryan Warsofsky stated. “There’s guys coming… the competitors you get is what creates the tradition that you really want as a corporation.”
“Begin incomes all the things. Incomes respect across the league, from different groups, gamers, coaches, officers, fan bases, and all that,” normal supervisor Mike Grier stated.
“I feel they obtained the message.”
