SAN JOSE – San Jose Sharks prospect Will Smith had lunch this week with veteran forwards Logan Couture and Barclay Goodrow, two central players in the team’s last playoff run in 2019.
Smith, naturally, wanted to know what it was like inside SAP Center more than five-plus years ago on the night Goodrow scored a series-clinching overtime goal in Game 7 against the Vegas Golden Knights, capping arguably the wildest game in team history.
“I actually watch it back on YouTube a lot, and seeing the Shark Tank like that is pretty crazy,” Smith said. “They were telling me how it was so loud, it was just ringing the entire time.
“It’s our goal to get it back to that.”
With plenty of renewed enthusiasm following a rather transformative summer, the on-ice part of that long process for the Sharks began Thursday with the first day of the team’s training camp.
New head coach Ryan Warsofsky directed several new players, including top prospects Smith and Macklin Celebrini, through hour-long practices featuring several up-tempo drills.
The overhauled Sharks hope to be a vastly different team than the one that finished last season with an NHL-worst 19-54-9 record, giving them the best chance to draft a potential future franchise cornerstone in Celebrini.
Now, with some more pieces in place, the Sharks feel ready to take a step forward. Certainly, their record could not get much worse.
“I think last year was rock bottom for us as an organization, and now it’s time to start moving forward and pushing things forward,” Sharks general manager Mike Grier said. “Not only myself, but I think the players and everyone’s excited to get going, turn the page and see what this year brings.”
San Jose Sharks’ first-round draft pick Macklin Celebrini #71 (left), Klim Kostin #10 and Tyler Toffoli #73 take a breather during the first day of training camp, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
Celebrini, who became the first player drafted No. 1 overall by the Sharks in June, already looked right at home during Thursday’s practice and intrasquad scrimmage, where he scored a couple of pretty goals and was all over the ice.
In one sequence, Celebrini buzzed around the offensive zone before he found a sliver of space in front of the opposing net. A split-second after he took the centering pass from defenseman Gannon Laroque, Celebrini ripped the puck past the glove hand of goalie Georgi Romanov.
“It’s pretty simple. Just get him the puck,” forward Tyler Toffoli said of Celebrini. “Yeah, he was pretty good out there.”
“The more you enjoy something, the more comfortable you are,” Celebrini said. “So enjoy it.”
Celebrini might start the season as the Sharks’ No. 1 center as captain Logan Couture will likely be on injured reserve to begin the year.
Couture, entering his sixth season as the Sharks’ captain, continues to deal with osteitis pubis — inflammation in the joint between the left and right pubic bones.
After missing all of training camp and the Sharks’ first 45 games, Couture last season returned and played in six straight games from Jan. 20-31 before being shelved again. But he hasn’t skated since that Jan. 31 game in Anaheim and still has no timeline for getting back onto the ice.
The Sharks open the season on Oct. 10 at home against the St. Louis Blues.
“I’ve played hockey for 30-plus years, and when it just ends abruptly, it’s difficult, especially when you don’t really have a choice. The body just breaks down,” Couture said Thursday. “But that’s the way professional sports, or sports in general, normally work, not always injuries, sometimes other reasons. But that’s the situation I’m in.”
The San Jose Sharks new coach Coach Ryan Warsofsky gives instructions during the first day of training camp, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
Couture was one of four injured Sharks players unable to skate Thursday.
Goalie prospect Yaroslav Askarov and defenseman Shakir Mukhamadullin are both out with lower-body injuries, and veteran defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic has an upper-body injury that Warsofsky said occurred during captains skates earlier this month. Warsofsky said those three are considered day-to-day.
The Sharks would appear to be better positioned to absorb Couture’s absence than they were last season.
Celebrini and Smith played center during their standout freshman seasons at Boston University and Boston College, respectively. The Sharks also added Goodrow and Alexander Wennberg this summer and have Mikael Granlund and Nico Sturm back from last season.
The Sharks’ forward group could have as many as seven or eight new players this season, and the defense corps added some needed experience with the acquisitions of Jake Walman and Cody Ceci. Askarov, the Sharks’ hope, will be the goalie of the future.
It all adds up to what the Sharks hope will be the most competitive camp in years, a message Grier relayed to the players on Wednesday.
“It’s about compete and earning your opportunities that maybe somewhat in the past, (there were) guys in the lineup or on the roster that maybe shouldn’t have been,” Grier said. “Now there’s legitimate competition throughout, and there’s no one where we don’t feel like we have to force someone onto the lineup.
“That was kind of the message to the guys, young and old. If you want a spot and you want to earn something, you’ve got to go out there and take it. No one’s going to give it to you anymore.”
San Jose Sharks’ Nico Sturm takes a shot during the team’s first day of training camp, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
The Sharks were in a downward spiral for three years before Grier’s arrival in the summer of 2022, yet the front office at the time was still unwilling to publicly state that they needed to rebuild after a decade and a half of success.
Then Grier arrived, ripped off the band-aid, stripped the roster down to the studs, and endured two of the most painful seasons in franchise history.
But now, with a restocked farm system led by Celebrini, is when all that heartache starts to pay off. Or at least, that’s the hope.
“I think we’re all trying to look forward,” Grier said. “We appreciate what was done here. I think (former Sharks GM) Doug (Wilson) did a great job, and it was something special to be so competitive for such a long time. But now I think it’s our turn and the group’s turn to start writing their own history.”
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Despite the additions, the Sharks are still expected to again finish near the bottom of the NHL standings. Few, if any, prognosticators believe the Sharks will make the playoffs this season, but there’s also a feeling among the players that they might not be as far off as some think.
Goodrow said the atmosphere inside the Shark Tank during and after that Game 7 against Vegas, “was the loudest building I’ve ever experienced. When we’re rolling here and the team’s competitive, it’s a great place to play and a great building to play in.
“It’s on us as players to get that back and bring the standard to what it was.”