{"id":467419,"date":"2026-09-18T02:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T02:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/467419\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T02:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T02:04:10","slug":"san-jose-sharks-macklin-celebrini-eye-playoffs-after-busy-offseason-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/467419\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks, Macklin Celebrini eye playoffs after busy offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE \u2013 Expectations for the Sharks this season are the highest in nearly a decade,<\/a> as they feature a revamped defense corps and their deepest forward group in years, led by the NHL\u2019s best young center.<\/a><\/p>\n

But as far as Sharks general manager Mike Grier is concerned, there better be a sense of urgency, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no time to ease into things,\u201d Grier said Thursday on the first day of training camp<\/a> and two weeks before the Sharks\u2019 regular-season opener<\/a> against the Florida Panthers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to make decisions, and if you want a spot, or you want ice time, or you want a role, it\u2019s go time right away. We can\u2019t afford to wait for guys who aren\u2019t quite ready to get their game going right off the hop.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to debuting a handful of new players, the Sharks on Thursday also announced a new multi-year contract extension<\/a> for Ryan Warsofsky, who is entering his third season as the team\u2019s head coach.<\/p>\n

Warsofsky, the NHL\u2019s youngest coach at 38, was about to begin the final year of his three-year deal after being hired in June 2024, following two seasons as a Sharks assistant.<\/p>\n

Now Warsofsky has been tasked with leading the Sharks, who missed the playoffs by just four points<\/a> last season, into a more competitive era after years of rebuilding.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal when we took over was to make this team relevant again and start being more competitive,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve taken some steps. I give a lot of credit to (Grier) for bringing in the right people. You don\u2019t change a culture with one person. You change it with a lot of different people and a lot of the right people, and we\u2019ve done that.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Grier and Warsofsky didn\u2019t want to say that making the playoffs was a must, players weren\u2019t shying away from those expectations, as the Sharks look to end a seven-year postseason drought.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re focused on,\u201d said center Macklin Celebrini, whose team-record 115-point season in 2025-26 was the main reason why the Sharks came so close to a playoff appearance. \u201cThat\u2019s our goal; it\u2019s a long road, 84 games, and there\u2019s a lot of work to be done and a lot of growing to do, but I think ultimately that\u2019s what we\u2019re striving for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that we expect to make the playoffs with the group that we have,\u201d Sharks winger Mason Marchment said. \u201cThere\u2019s no reason that we shouldn\u2019t make the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The offseason additions figure to help.<\/p>\n

Two defensemen acquired via trade, Michael Kesselring and Darnell Nurse, were paired together Thursday, and another new blueliner, Jacob Trouba, skated with second-year player Sam Dickinson.<\/p>\n

Nurse, Kesselring and Trouba, whose contracts carry a combined $24 million cap hit, are expected to help in several areas, adding much-needed size and puck-moving ability to the back end while making the Sharks, they hope, harder to play against.<\/p>\n

The Sharks allowed an average of 3.54 goals per game last season, third-most in the NHL, and cutting that number down is priority No. 1. They also need to be better at playoff-style hockey after fading down the stretch last season, when they went 7-9-4 from March 6 to April 13 to fall out of contention.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a consistent theme with the guys that were brought in here,\u201d said Trouba, who inked a four-year, $33 million deal<\/a> with the Sharks as a free agent on July 1. \u201cWe want to play a hard game, be hard to play against. I remember back when I started my career, it was not very fun to play against the Sharks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s the identity in the team that we want to get back to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sharks hope Marchment, who was signed to a five-year, $33.75 million deal<\/a> on July 1, also becomes a big part of that identity. Over his last five seasons, the 31-year-old Marchment had 93 goals and 223 points. On Thursday, he played left wing on a line with Celebrini and Will Smith.<\/p>\n

Marchment also logged 296 penalty minutes, showing he isn\u2019t afraid to mix it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou either get pushed around, or you push around,\u201d Marchment said.<\/p>\n

Marchment adds to a deep group of wingers<\/a> that also features Tyler Toffoli, Kiefer Sherwood, Collin Graf, Igor Chernyshov, Ivar Stenberg, Ty Dellandrea, Barclay Goodrow, and Adam Gaudette, among others. Not everyone will play every game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when you start going places, when your group gets competition within itself,\u201d Warsofsky said, \u201cand I think that\u2019s what we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the middle of it all will be Celebrini, whose play last season usually dictated if the Sharks won or lost. In a year when they went 39-35-8, the Sharks were a dismal 2-17-3 when Celebrini didn\u2019t have a point.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve got a pretty deep forward roster, and a lot of guys who can score,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt can\u2019t just be the top guys scoring. Everyone\u2019s got to help out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grier wouldn\u2019t say whether he was ready to name a captain, namely Celebrini, during training camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe captaincy in this league, it\u2019s a sacred thing to me,\u201d Grier said. \u201cIt\u2019s very important. It\u2019s not something I\u2019m in a rush to hand out to anyone. So when we do decide to name a captain, it\u2019s hopefully someone who\u2019s going to be captain for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

INJURY UPDATES<\/p>\n

Quentin Musty and Cam Lund, two forwards who hoped to push for a Sharks\u2019 roster spot during camp, will both miss an extended period after sustaining upper-body injuries during last weekend\u2019s Rookie Faceoff event at Tech CU Arena.<\/p>\n

Grier said Thursday that Musty and goalie Kyle Keyser, who also has an upper-body injury, will be out \u201cfor a couple months at least.\u201d He added that Lund\u2019s injury will keep him out for at least a month.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear when Keyser was hurt, but because of his injury, the Sharks signed former NHL goalie Ilya Samsonov to a one-year, two-way contract earlier this month. The Russian-born Samsonov is not yet in camp as he deals with immigration issues.<\/p>\n

Grier also said center Filip Bystedt and defenseman Mattias Havelid, two players likely to start the season with the Barracuda, are day-to-day with their injuries and could join camp later this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2013 Expectations for the Sharks this season are the highest in nearly a decade, as they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[402,181,1035,404,88,90,89,98,403,94685,127],"class_list":["post-467419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-inside-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-macklin-celebrini","tag-nhl","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sharks-alert","tag-social-alert","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}