The Sharks are heading into the 2025-26 season with real optimism for the first time in a while, but the path to a playoff spot is still narrow. San Jose has made roster changes, its young talent is expected to take another step, and Macklin Celebrini sits at the center of the buzz. Even so, the Sharks are still a young team, still building, and still trying to end a seven-year playoff drought.
That’s why this season opener against the Florida Panthers and the stretch that follows matter so much. San Jose does not need perfection, but it does need a cleaner start, a sturdier blue line, and fewer self-inflicted wounds if it wants to stay in the race.
The defense is the first obvious pressure point. Nolan Allan, Luca Cagnoni and Sam Dickinson are all 23 or younger, and the three of them have just 124 games of NHL experience combined.
The Sharks do have more seasoned options in Dmitry Orlov, Jacob Trouba, Darnell Nurse and Michael Kesselring, but that group has to stay intact. Kesselring is coming off an injury-hit season, and if one of the veterans goes down, San Jose could be forced to lean on younger players before they’re ready.
If that happens, the likely call-up options are first-year pro Eric Pohlkamp and Libor Hajek, who has spent the last three years in the Czech League. The organization has added some depth on defense, but it’s still a work in progress. For this team, losing a forward can be absorbed more easily than losing one of the experienced defensemen.
The larger issue is the one that has haunted the Sharks for years: goals against. Last season, they allowed 3.54 per game, which ranked 30th in the NHL.
They also tied for 28th in 5-on-5 goals allowed with 190. That kind of number is hard to live with in a league where the playoff field usually skews toward teams that defend well.
Last year, only two of the bottom 10 teams in 5-on-5 goals allowed - the Anaheim Ducks and Edmonton Oilers - reached the postseason, while 13 of the top 14 teams in goals against got in.
San Jose spent training camp trying to get more comfortable in a slightly different system aimed at cutting those totals down. Warsofsky said the staff has made the issue a daily talking point.
“I guess time will tell,” Warsofsky said when asked if he feels the Sharks have made progress in preventing goals. “I think we’ve done a pretty good job.
It was big for us as a staff to really make that point very clear. We’ve probably hit on it every day, whether that’s in morning skate video sessions; we did it a little bit more today, and we’ll do it a little bit more again (Wednesday).
“I think our players are very well aware where we stand in that category. We’re going to give up goals, but we can’t give up the soft ones or the ones that we’re there, but we’re really not there.”
There’s also the goaltending piece. The Sharks posted a team save percentage of .881 last season, which ranked 25th in the league.
That wasn’t only on the goalies, either. Puck-management mistakes from both forwards and defensemen played a role, and San Jose finished four points short of the playoffs.
A little more stability in net and a few fewer giveaways could have changed the picture.
Alex Nedeljkovic pointed to the coaching staff’s emphasis on that area.
“The coaching staff has done a good job of making it a focal point and explaining and understanding that it’s not just a number,” Sharks goalie Alex Nedeljkovic said of the goals against. “There’s a reason why the best teams in the league, why their numbers look a certain way.”
The schedule does San Jose no favors, either. Of the Sharks’ first 12 games, eight are on the road, including a six-game, 10-day trip that is mostly against Atlantic Division teams. In their first 13 games overall, eight come against playoff teams from last season, not counting the Panthers, who missed the postseason in 2026 after winning the Cup the previous two years.
That’s a rough opening stretch for a team that has been digging out of slow starts for four straight years. Over the last four seasons, San Jose’s combined record after 10 games was 6-29-5. The Sharks did climb back into the race last season after opening 2-6-2, but repeating that kind of hole probably won’t work this time.
Warsofsky knows it.
“Sometimes you’ve got to have a little bit more patience and not be so result-driven,” Warsofsky said. “I get it.
This business is result-driven, and we all want to win. Trust me, I completely understand that, and we all want to get off to a great start.
That’s extremely important.
“But we also have to stick to the process. You can’t just say, ‘All right, let’s go win the hockey game.’
It’s not that easy. We have to stick to what we do and our identity, how we want to play, how we want to approach our matchups, and how we want to structure our practices leading up to it, and just have a really detailed plan.”
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There is now a real sense that this is not just a routine negotiation but a process with some friction attached, especially after reports that Nikishin has requested a trade. For a team that would prefer clarity on a player with his profile, the timing only adds to the uncertainty, and this may not be the kind of issue that gets neatly wrapped up anytime soon. [Read more 🡒]