SAN JOSE - The Sharks came into Monday’s practice looking for answers, and coach Ryan Warsofsky gave the forward group a new set of looks after a stretch in which the offense has barely moved the needle.
Igor Chernyshov bumped up to the top line with center Macklin Celebrini and right wing Will Smith, pushing Mason Marchment down into the mix with center Alexander Wennberg and Tyler Toffoli. Another new trio featured Michael Misa between Ivar Stenberg and Kiefer Sherwood, while the fourth line had Zack Ostapchuk centering Collin Graf and Adam Gaudette, with Ty Dellandrea also rotating in.
Barclay Goodrow was not on the ice for Monday’s practice for yet unknown reasons.
The back end stayed unchanged from the last three games. Darnell Nurse skated with Michael Kesselring, Jacob Trouba was paired with Sam Dickinson, and Dmitry Orlov lined up with Luca Cagnoni.
San Jose also tweaked its power play. Stenberg moved onto the top unit and joined Celebrini, Smith, Wennberg and Cagnoni, while the second group featured Toffoli, Misa, Chernyshov, Marchment and Orlov.
The lineup shuffle comes with the Sharks still buried near the bottom of the league in the numbers that measure quality offense. Entering Tuesday’s home game against the Boston Bruins, San Jose and the Columbus Blue Jackets were tied for 30th in the NHL with 78 scoring chances each at 5-on-5, according to Natural Stat Trick, with only the Los Angeles Kings behind them at 73. The Blue Jackets and Kings, however, have played one fewer game than the Sharks.
The Sharks are also last in the league in expected goals-for percentage at 30.4, a drop from 27th a year ago when they finished at 46.91.
Some of the slump has been tied to Celebrini missing last week’s games against the Dallas Stars, a 5-0 loss, and the St. Louis Blues, a 3-2 overtime win.
But even with Celebrini back on Saturday against the Edmonton Oilers, the offense didn’t find much room to breathe. San Jose generated just two high-danger chances, both in the second period, and remains dead last in the NHL with 22 high-danger chances this season.
After that game, Warsofsky said a change was likely coming.
“We’ve got to figure it out, right?” Warsofsky said.
“There’s a balance of kind of building some chemistry, and there’s a balance of finding chemistry and what clicks and what matchups you want to get. So we’ve got to figure out our lines here.”
In Other News...
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The other layer is in goal, where Yaroslav Askarovs season looms as a major part of the short-term plan. If he gives San Jose the kind of stability it needs, the organization can keep leaning into its youth movement and see how the pieces fit. If not, the Sharks may have to keep working the position while the rest of the roster develops, which makes their early-season evaluation feel even more important. [Read more 🡒]
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The Sharks are still early in the season, but the next stretch already feels like a useful test of whether their recent emphasis on defensive consistency and daily habits is taking hold. San Jose has been sorting through line combinations and trying to balance the growth of its younger players with the steadier influence of veterans, all while keeping an eye on goaltender workloads as the schedule starts to tighten up.
Macklin Celebrini has been one of the clearest bright spots in that mix, showing real second-year growth and helping the Sharks in both ends of the ice. Still, the bigger question for a team trying to build a more reliable identity is how those individual gains hold up against a tougher run of opponents, especially with Boston, Nashville and Detroit coming next and the margin for error getting smaller. [Read more 🡒]