Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images
If the Blueshirts’ brass is to take anything away from their visit to San Jose’s SAP Center tonight it is how to build a winning hockey team. (Granted, that’s asking a lot of Drury, Inc.)
Although San Jose’s sextet was predicted by The Hockey News Yearbook to finish eighth in its division, GM Mike Grier’s outfit has playoffs written all over it.
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For that, California fans can thank Sharks owner Hasso Plattner and Grier for that. Plattner allowed Grier to pull off a full rebuild and it’s happening a lot faster than anyone imagined.
“It meant that there would be a drop in attendance and presumably revenues,” said Sharks beat writer Curtis Pashelka in The Hockey News Yearbook. “But if the Sharks come out of this legitimate Cup contenders for years to come, that patience will have paid off.”
The reason why you can bet on it is that San Jose boasts center Macklin Celebrini who led the Sharks in scoring last season as a rookie and who’s threatening the likes of Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon as the NHL Top Banana among scorers.
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“The Rangers have absolutely no young forward to come close to matching Celebrini,” says The Old Scout, “and none on the horizon.”
At least one Blueshirt beat writer is hoping that Gabe Perreault may emerge as New York’s version of Celebrini. But that will happen when the Brooklyn Bridge is sold at auction.
As for tonight, let’s hope for the Rangers’ sake that they close the road trip with Spencer Martin in goal since Jonathan Quick’s work in 2026 so far suggests that the sooner he retires the better his overall reputation will be.
Quick’s retention this year in the hope that he still had the goods worked through Christmas. The problem here was that the season doesn’t end on January 1st. It ends in April.