ST. LOUIS - Tyler Toffoli is starting to look like a player who knows exactly where the goals are.
The San Jose Sharks winger scored in Thursday’s 3-2 overtime win over the St. Louis Blues, giving him two goals in four games to open the season.
That alone is enough to get people talking about a comeback year. But the deeper signs are even more interesting: Toffoli is doing the little things that showed up in 2024-25, when he led the Sharks with 30 goals, and those details were much harder to find during last season’s dip to 19.
“I thought Toff was really good tonight,” head coach Ryan Warsofsky said.
The night wasn’t spotless. Early in the third period, Toffoli’s (73) pass to an empty point - apparently meant for Mason Marchment (27) or Kiefer Sherwood (44) in the middle? - turned into Dillon Dube’s short-handed goal.
And the third-period power-play alignment of Jacob Trouba-Sherwood-Marchment-Toffoli-Alex Wennberg, which pushed top-unit net-front man Wennberg into a group of four new linemates, felt like a big swing regardless of how the game ended. At that point, a simpler tweak might have made more sense, perhaps swapping Toffoli and Igor Chernyshov at bumper, since Chernyshov really struggled against the Blues.
Still, one bad play doesn’t define a game. Toffoli was a positive overall, both in the obvious ways and in the stuff that doesn’t jump off the screen right away.
The headline play was the goal itself, a timely strike while the Sharks were being outshot 15-9 and looking shaky early.
“That was just a greasy goal in getting to that, getting to the hard areas, and obviously Toff has done that for a long time,” Darnell Nurse said. “That’s why he’s had such a great career, and that got us going.”
Then came the response after the turnover. Toffoli made a soft pass to Sam Dickinson (6) off Michael Misa’s (77) forecheck, and that sequence helped set up Collin Graf’s (51) game-tying goal.
The numbers back up the eye test, too. Per Stathletes, Toffoli finished with a 95.24 Pass Completion %. He missed one pass all night, and it wound up in the back of his own net.
That kind of line is almost absurd. If this were football, it would be like a quarterback throwing one pick-six and otherwise being perfect.
For perspective, Misa was right in the middle of the pack among Sharks forwards with a 77.78 Pass Completion %, while Chernyshov was last at 52.94. That lines up with what the game looked like.
There’s also the broader season picture. In 2025-26, Alex Wennberg led Sharks forwards with a 78.98 Pass Completion %, Sherwood sat in the middle at 71.99, and Ty Dellandrea was last on the team at 67.12. Toffoli’s own marks were 75.03 as the seventh-ranked Sharks forward in 2025-26 and 76.86, fifth on the club, in 2024-25.
Thursday felt more like the version of Toffoli who can drive play with pace, crisp passing and a willingness to attack inside. That matters because last season he wasn’t getting to those dangerous areas nearly as often. His 0.71 High-Danger Scoring Chances Per 60 ranked ninth among Sharks forwards, well behind Will Smith’s team-best 1.24.
That was a steep drop from 2024-25, when Toffoli led San Jose forwards at 1.41 High-Danger Scoring Chances Per 60. He also led New Jersey Devils forwards in that category in 2023-24.
For a scorer who makes his living in the dirty areas, that decline suggested he might be losing a step. But Toffoli dropped 13 pounds over the summer, and early returns are promising. So far, he leads San Jose forwards with 2.23 High-Danger Scoring Chances Per 60.
That number won’t hold, but the trend matters. Even in Monday’s 5-0 loss to the Dallas Stars, Toffoli generated San Jose’s best chance of the night.
That’s the point with him: if he’s getting chances, he usually cashes in. He has 311 career goals and counting, and he has a long track record of turning those looks into production.
It won’t always be pretty, especially with the skating. But right now, Toffoli is being effective, and the early signs point toward a possible comeback season.
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