The Sharks aren’t headed to the Stanley Cup playoffs this season, but they are so close, they can taste it.
Despite San Jose’s 3-2 win over the Nashville Predators on Monday night at Bridgestone Arena, the Sharks officially were eliminated from playoff contention with the Los Angeles Kings’ 5-3 win over the Seattle Kraken later in the evening.
The Kings’ win gives them 89 points on the 2025-26 NHL season, while the most the Sharks can get now is 88.
Superstar Macklin Celebrini and Co. pushed hard to secure the franchise’s first postseason berth since 2019, but they came up just short.
The Kings, meanwhile, earned the Western Conference’s final wild-card spot.
After six tough years, the fruit of the Sharks’ labor finally started to show this season, as they nearly doubled their win total (37, entering the final two games) from last year (20).
Celebrini, the 2024 NHL Draft’s No. 1 overall pick, blossomed into a must-see star and Hart Trophy contender. With two games left in the season, he has a chance to break the franchise’s single-season points record (Joe Thornton — 114 in 2006-07).
The Sharks also received key contributions from Will Smith, Alex Wennberg, Tyler Toffoli, William Eklund and Collin Graf, while Yaroslav Askarov and Alex Nedeljkovic formed a potent 1-2 goalie punch.
Now that the Sharks are on the brink of the postseason, it will be up to general manager Mike Grier and the front office to add veteran pieces who can get the team over the hump.
Considering the Sharks were winless in their first six games of the season (0-4-2), they should be proud that they got things on the right track and gave themselves a shot to make the playoffs.
But in need of every point possible, the Sharks lost four of their last six games, crushing any chance of catching the teams ahead of them in the standings.
With Celebrini and Smith at the top, the sky is the limit for the Sharks, and next season should go a long way to showing if they are capable of climbing to the mountaintop.