{"id":836383,"date":"2026-07-31T20:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T20:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/836383\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T20:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T20:39:09","slug":"sharks-re-sign-forward-collin-graf-to-a-three-year-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/836383\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharks re-sign forward Collin Graf to a three-year contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>San Jose Sharks (<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sanjosesharks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">@SanJoseSharks<\/a>) General Manager\u00a0Mike Grier\u00a0announced today that the club has\u00a0re-signed\u00a0forward\u00a0Collin Graf\u00a0to a\u00a0three-year contract worth $4.25 million AAV.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u201cCollin was a big\u00a0part of our team\u2019s improvement this past season, being an effective penalty killer for us and his versatility in the lineup was extremely valuable,\u201d said Grier. \u201cHis\u00a0hard working\u00a0attitude and work ethic is a big\u00a0reason why\u00a0his game took another stride last year, and he continues to be an important person in our young group of players.\u00a0We\u2019re\u00a0happy\u00a0we\u00a0are able to\u00a0keep him a\u00a0Shark for the next several seasons.\u201d\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Graf,\u00a023,\u00a0recorded 46 points (21 goals, 25 assists) in 81 games, along with a plus-6 rating. He set career bests in\u00a0nearly every\u00a0offensive category this\u00a0year, and\u00a0reached the 20-goal threshold for the first time in his career.\u00a0Among undrafted NHL players, Graf\u00a0ranked tied\u00a0for fourth in\u00a0points, tied for fifth in goals,\u00a0and tied for sixth in assists.\u00a0Among those\u00a0Top-10\u00a0point getters who were undrafted, Graf is the youngest of the group.\u00a0By the end of the season, he finished\u00a0third on the team in goals,\u00a0sixth in points and seventh in assists.\u00a0He factored in all three of the Sharks shorthanded goals this year, registered a six-game point streak from Dec. 13-27 (five goals, three assists), which also included a four-game goal scoring streak from Dec. 18-27 (five goals).\u00a0Over the course of the campaign, he registered eight multi-point\u00a0games, and\u00a0earned a career-high three-point game on Mar. 14 against the Montreal Canadiens.\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Graf was a part of the young group of players aged 23-or-younger on the Sharks\u00a0who set\u00a0team records for goals and points within the age group and led the NHL in all U-23 scoring categories, including percentage of each stat from players 23 or younger.\u00a0In total, 206 of 249 goals scored by San Jose over the course of the season featured at least one player 23 years of age or younger. Graf\u2019s overtime winner on Nov. 11 at MIN was just the ninth time since the introduction of 3-on-3 overtime in 2015-16 that all players on the ice for the winning team when the decisive goal was scored were 23 or younger, with Graf joined by\u00a0Macklin\u00a0Celebrini, Sam Dickinson and Yaroslav Askarov.\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Over the course of his NHL career, all with the Sharks, he has appeared in 121 games, scoring 59 points (26 goals, 33 assists).\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Prior to his professional career, he\u00a0led Quinnipiac University in scoring with 49 points\u00a0and\u00a022\u00a0goals,\u00a0and\u00a0was second on the club with 27 assists in the 2023-24 season\u00a0en\u00a0route to being named to the Hobey Baker Memorial Award Top 10 finalists list\u00a0for the second year in a row.\u00a0Named ECAC Player of the Year\u00a0after the\u00a02023-24\u00a0season, Graf registered 12\u00a0multi-point games on the season\u00a0and tallied an assist in Quinnipiac\u2019s NCAA Quarterfinal contest, an overtime loss against\u00a0top-ranked\u00a0Boston College.\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Graf helped the Bobcats win the NCAA national championship in the 2022-23 season\u00a0as a sophomore,\u00a0scoring a third-period, game-tying goal\u00a0with 2:47\u00a0remaining\u00a0in regulation to force the\u00a0contest\u00a0to a decisive overtime. Graf\u00a0led\u00a0the team in all scoring categories with 21 goals, 38 assists and 59 points, with his\u00a0assist total tying\u00a0for the NCAA lead\u00a0and tied the program record in the process for most points in a season.\u00a0He was\u00a0a\u00a0HCA\u00a0co-National Player of the Month in November, a\u00a0two-time ECAC\u00a0Forward\u00a0of the Month in\u00a0December and March,\u00a0was\u00a0tabbed for the ECAC First All-Conference Team,\u00a0earned a spot on the NCAA Tournament\u00a0All-Tournament Team, was an AHCA\u00a0First Team All-American and was a Hobey Baker Memorial Award Top 10 finalist.\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>He finished his collegiate career with 130 points (54 goals, 76 assists) in 112 games.\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>The\u00a0six-foot-one,\u00a0195-pound\u00a0Lincoln, Massachusetts\u00a0native\u00a0was originally signed by San Jose as a free\u00a0agent on Apr. 4, 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks (@SanJoseSharks) General Manager\u00a0Mike Grier\u00a0announced today that the club has\u00a0re-signed\u00a0forward\u00a0Collin Graf\u00a0to a\u00a0three-year contract worth $4.25 million&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-836383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}