The Florida Panthers flew across the country on Tuesday, a flight that would have seemed much longer had the Panthers not pulled off a buzzer-beating overtime win against the Carolina Hurricanes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The evening started with the Panthers sitting quietly on their bench while the Hurricanes raised their Stanley Cup banner.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really important that teams respect each other for those achievements,\u201d\u00a0Paul Maurice\u00a0said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tonight, the Panthers will be part of a second Opening Night \u2014 this one in San Jose against a much-improved Sharks team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
San Jose\u2019s improvement last year was noticed around the league, but also by the Panthers. Florida found that out the hard way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After years of dominating the Sharks, Florida went 0-2 against San Jose last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although the Sharks have missed the playoffs for seven straight seasons, they were only four points out last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prior to last season, the Panthers owned the Sharks, racking up 10 straight wins over five seasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The last loss to San Jose before last season came on December 1, 2017, when\u00a0Joe Thornton\u00a0and\u00a0Joe Pavelski\u00a0were in the lineup.<\/p>\n
The reasons for the improvement to the team are quite obvious.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Macklin Celebrini\u00a0was an elite NHL player the moment he stepped on the ice as an 18-year-old two seasons back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last year, his 45 goals and 115 points placed him fourth in NHL scoring.<\/p>\n
The spotlight will be on him again this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the offseason he was named team captain, replacing the retired\u00a0Logan Couture. He also signed a five-year contract extension, effective next season, which will make him the second-highest paid player in the NHL at $18.8 million per.<\/p>\n
Often lost in the attention paid to Celebrini is the work of rising star\u00a0Will Smith\u00a0who chipped in with 24 goals last season. Smith was drafted fourth overall in 2023 after starring with the U.S. National Development Team.<\/p>\n
Smith and Celebrini were the only Sharks\u2019 regulars to finish with a positive +\/- last season.<\/p>\n
The newly acquired\u00a0Mason Marchment, a likely first-liner with Celebrini and Smith, will add veteran presence and snarl to the line.<\/p>\n
A dark horse at forward is 19-year-old\u00a0Ivar Stenberg, the second-overall pick in the 2026 draft. The youngster appears to have made the opening night roster.<\/p>\n
Last season the Sharks finished a woeful 30th in the NHL in defense, allowing 3.54 goals per game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The additions of\u00a0Jacob Trouba\u00a0and\u00a0Darnell Nurse\u00a0on the blueline will add experience and toughness.<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s goaltending duo of\u00a0Yaroslav Askarov\u00a0and\u00a0Alex Nedeljkovicare back. They were under siege most of the season. Both finished with save percentages below .900. With a tighter and tougher defense this season those numbers should improve.<\/p>\n
\u201cLots of speed. An awful lot of skill,\u2019\u2019 Maurice said. \u201cI really like the additions they made to the weight of their team.\u201d<\/p>\n
He mentioned the two losses to the Sharks last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you get the right kind of young people then your plan speeds up,\u2019\u2019 Maurice continued. \u201cWhen you don\u2019t have to shelter them as much, then there\u2019s a time to go out and get some veteran players\u2026Credit to the young players that play the game the right way. Very creative. Very dynamic. They don\u2019t cheat the game\u2026.They\u2019re legit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The potential impact of the additions of Marchment, Trouba and Nurse can\u2019t be ignored.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey got bigger, they got heavier, they all play a hard game,\u2019\u2019 Maurice said. \u201c[Opponents] are not intimidating any of them. That part of the game that complements skills so very well. It also will teach the level of compete that these guys have made a career on\u2026I thought it was just incredibly thought out. Complementary pieces to the young skill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coach\u00a0Ryan Warsofsky\u00a0will be on the hot seat this season if the team doesn\u2019t improve to playoff capability. GM\u00a0Mike Grier\u00a0just rewarded him with a two-year contract extension.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a slow rebuild for the Sharks, but with an abundance of young talent and a handful of skilled veterans, the Sharks will not be fun to play against this season.<\/p>\n
ON DECK: GAME No. 2<\/p>\n
FLORIDA PANTHERS at SAN JOSE SHARKS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Panthers flew across the country on Tuesday, a flight that would have seemed much longer had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2065,1035,88,90,89,98],"class_list":["post-481564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-florida-panthers","tag-macklin-celebrini","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-sharks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481564","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=481564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}