COLUMBUS — The San Jose Sharks probably aren’t making the playoffs. But if they did it…

The Sharks have a model in the Columbus Blue Jackets, who they edged 3-2, snapping a six-game losing streak.

San Jose is now four points behind the Nashville Predators for the last wild card spot in the West, with two games in hand, but four teams to leapfrog.

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On Jan. 12, Rick Bowness took over the 19-19-7 Blue Jackets. Since then, Columbus has gone 19-5-4.

Before the game, head coach Ryan Warsofsky shared his thoughts about the Jackets’ renaissance and how the Sharks could replicate it. It was an interesting conversation about the psychology of a winning streak.

“You see it from afar, and then on film, they get a lot of buy-in. I’d say that’s what sticks out for me the most. It’s the way you have to play this time of the year, they’re getting a lot of buy-in from their whole group, from up and down their line-up,” Warsofsky said.

Isn’t buy-in a big part of a coach’s job? No doubt, but also…

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“It comes with results, right? You start winning some hockey games,” Warsofsky said, “and we had a little bit of that when we were winning games there, before the Deadline.”

Warsofsky is talking about San Jose’s 13-7-0 stretch from Dec. 11 to Jan. 27. Now that’s no 19-5-3, but that was some of the Sharks’ best hockey this season. But…

“You can’t start a fire without a spark,” Bruce Springsteen sings in “Dancing In the Dark”.

“Maybe it’s a big win? Maybe it’s a winning streak, you get some wins under your belt,” Warsofsky said. “You get more buy-in organically through the dressing room.”

For the San Jose Sharks, that spark was clearly the miracle 6-5 OT comeback at the Pittsburgh Penguins on Dec. 13.

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“And then when you lose a couple games,” Warsofsky admitted, “you fight that confidence.”

We’ve seen that recently, especially during the first five games of this just snapped six-game losing streak. San Jose was outscored 28-11 in that stretch.

So can Igor Chernyshov’s last-minute game-winner be that spark? The Sharks, also, have just played two of their better games this season, the 2-1 OT loss at the St. Louis Blues, followed by tonight’s triumph, that “way you have to play this time of the year”.

Warsofsky elaborated post-game, “The last two games, we’ve played a little bit more of a direct hockey game, more north, quicker puck play, but going north quicker.”

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And now, the Sharks are going home to friendly SAP Center, where they play seven of their last 11 games to end this season. They’re 17-12-5 in San Jose this year.

“Your confidence is going, you get the energy in the building,” Warsofsky said, “you feed off of that, and you get a little swagger.”

The San Jose Sharks probably aren’t making the playoffs. But from the nadir of this season, the 6-3 loss at the Nashville Predators to begin this road trip, it’s encouraging to see them fight back.

“We haven’t given up yet. We haven’t quit,” Macklin Celebrini said after the game. “Anything can happen.”

No matter what happens, this has been a successful season, and it’s not just because of Celebrini’s emergence as a superstar.

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Collin Graf and Zack Ostapchuk have become reliable NHL forwards. Chernyshov, Will Smith, William Eklund, Michael Misa, and Sam Dickinson have shown significant growth from last year or in-season. Yaroslav Askarov has flashed elite puck-stopping promise.

And they’re all 23-and-under.

The development isn’t just physical either, it’s mental.

“I think we’ve had a lot of growth in this season. It’s funny, we get a lot of flack because we’ve fallen out of the playoff race here a little bit. We’re going to continue to push,” Warsofsky said. “But we’ve come a long way from day one, where we wanted to just hang in games, and sometimes not get blown out. To the point where the expectation is for us to win the game 1774778678. That’s a big jump, in my opinion, of where we’ve come this year. We go into games, thinking we can win them.”

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Warsofsky may not have won at the NHL yet, but he’s won in both the ECHL and AHL, and took the gold at the 2025 World Championships, so he has some understanding about what winning looks like: “That takes a while to get to that mindset. I’m proud of the group for doing that, getting over that hump, so we’re in win mode. We gotta continue to build off that.”

Let’s see if the Sharks can do that, clock ticking on their season.

Macklin CelebriniAlex NedeljkovicWill SmithRyan Warsofsky

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