Darnell Nurse needed barely a minute into overtime to give the Sharks the kind of finish they’ve been chasing.
After a game that swung back and forth at Enterprise Center, Nurse buried his first goal with his new team at the 1:03 mark of OT, finishing a clean feed from Ivar Stenberg and lifting San Jose to a 3-2 win over the Blues. The Sharks had to do it without Macklin Celebrini again, but they still found enough offense to pull out their third overtime victory in four games this season.
Tyler Toffoli scored and added an assist, Collin Graf also scored, and Alex Nedeljkovic stopped 23 shots in his first start of the season for San Jose. The Sharks were slow out of the gate, got pinned back early, and still found a way to survive a rough opening and leave with two points.
The night started with St. Louis controlling the pace. San Jose was outshot 11-3 in the first period and fell behind at 3:52 when Connor McMichael finished an odd-man rush, tipping in Mason McTavish’s return pass after Jacob Trouba pinched and missed the puck in the Sharks’ zone.
That made it back-to-back games where San Jose got buried early in the first period. Three days after the Sharks were outshot 11-2 by Dallas in the opening frame, they were again chasing the game almost immediately.
Still, the Sharks answered after Toffoli’s pressure finally cracked the board. With a tripping penalty to Joel Hofer just expired, Toffoli fired on net, tracked his own rebound and knocked it in at 8:48 of the second period for his second goal of the season.
St. Louis grabbed the lead back quickly when Dillon Dube scored shorthanded 1:39 into the third, but San Jose responded again. Less than five minutes later, Sam Dickinson worked a loose puck free in the corner to the left of the Blues and sent it out front for Graf, who buried his first goal of the season to tie it 2-2.
That set the stage for overtime, where Nurse ended it in short order.
Celebrini was scratched for a second straight game because of a lower-body injury, leaving the Sharks without their captain and leading scorer from the past two seasons. He entered the week with five points, all assists, and had already missed 13 games because of injury since the start of his 2024-25 rookie season. San Jose is 3-9-1 in those games.
Celebrini’s absence has been a real obstacle, and the Sharks had just been shut out 5-0 by Dallas on Monday in their first game in nearly two years without him. But Thursday’s result gave them a better feeling heading into Saturday’s matchup with Edmonton.
“Really can’t get into the details,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky told reporters on Thursday about Celebrini’s injury. “I know I can say he’s worked extremely hard off the ice with our group to get healthy. He’s a true pro in every sense of that.”
Nedeljkovic handled the first period workload well, turning aside 10 shots as the Sharks weathered the Blues’ early push. Thursday was also St. Louis’ home opener, coming after a 4-0 win over Dallas on Oct. 2, a 6-1 loss to Colorado the next night and a 4-2 defeat to Chicago on Tuesday.
The Sharks also made a roster move Thursday, placing winger Brett Leason on waivers, which could be a sign that Adam Gaudette is close to returning. Gaudette has been out since training camp with an upper-body injury, started the season on injured reserve, and joined the team on its road trip through Dallas and St.
Louis while working back into game shape. He had 25 points, including 17 goals, in 66 games for San Jose last season.
Leason, 27, has played 226 NHL games and signed a one-year, two-way deal with the Sharks in July. He didn’t dress for San Jose’s first three games and was expected to be a scratch again Thursday. If he clears waivers, he’ll be sent to the Barracuda, who host Tucson on Friday and Saturday.
In Other News...
Sharks Get The Win They Needed But One Issue Still Stands Out
The Sharks found enough offense and enough resolve at Enterprise Center to leave St. Louis with a much-needed win, a result that offered a welcome change of pace after a stretch in which every point has felt precious. Tyler Toffoli and Collin Graf both chipped in goals as San Jose stayed in the game through the ups and downs of a detailed, penalty-filled night, and there were positive stretches mixed in with the familiar struggles that have followed the club.
Darnell Nurse added the decisive strike in overtime, a finish that mattered not just for the standings but for the kind of belief a team can carry out of a building like this. Still, even with the victory in hand, one issue continued to stand out for the Sharks across the period-by-period flow of the game, and it was the sort of wrinkle that cant be ignored for long if they want nights like this to become more common. [Read more 🡒]
Sharks Roster Move Just Put Their Early Forward Picture In Focus
The Sharks early-season forward group is starting to take shape, and a recent roster move gave a clearer look at where things stand. San Jose placed Brett Leason on waivers after he did not appear in the teams first three games, a sign the club is getting closer to full health up front after sorting through its opening-week lineup combinations.
Adam Gaudettes progress is the key piece here, as the center is nearing a return from the upper-body injury he suffered in training camp and should slide back into a middle-six role soon. If Leason clears, the expectation is that he will head to the AHLs San Jose Barracuda, leaving the Sharks with a cleaner picture as they try to settle their forward rotation early in the season. [Read more 🡒]
Sharks Showed Early Fight In A Road Test Fans Needed To See
The Sharks had enough early push in St. Louis to make this feel less like a routine road night and more like a team trying to show it still had some bite. In a nationally broadcast game, San Jose answered an early Blues lead by tying things up twice, a small but meaningful step for a group that has spent too much of the season chasing games instead of shaping them.
St. Louis eventually found separation with a short-handed goal, and the Blues finished off a 3-2 overtime win, but the effort still offered San Jose a few reasons to feel better about the compete level. The lineup was again without Macklin Celebrini, who missed his second straight game while recovering from a lower-body injury, and that absence only sharpened the focus on how the Sharks responded with one of their more spirited road starts. [Read more 🡒]