The Sharks have rediscovered something long lost.<\/p>\n
They believe that they can win every game. That doesn\u2019t sound like much, but when you\u2019ve missed the Stanley Cup playoffs for six straight seasons and were the worst team in the NHL for the last two years, that\u2019s an essential step toward returning to a championship standard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s the biggest thing that I’ve taken so far from this year,\u201d Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. \u201cWe\u2019ve come a long way from Day 1, 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 1775528392. That\u2019s a big jump, in my opinion, of where we\u2019ve come this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve been in locker rooms where you go into a game and you’re like, \u2018What are we gonna do? How are we gonna do this?\u2019\u201d Alex Nedeljkovic said. \u201cIt’s a hard one to get out of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Believing you can win every game doesn\u2019t come from any one place. Think of it as a circle feeding on each other, until you\u2019re on top of the mountain with a Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen someone believes in something and they believe in each other, that\u2019s when you make moves, that\u2019s when you make strides, and that\u2019s where you see a lot of success come from,\u201d Warsofsky said. \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s so powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three reasons stand out for the Sharks believing, once again.<\/p>\n
Team<\/p>\n
Simply put, this edition of the Sharks is a team, and not a collection of individuals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat group is extremely coachable,\u201d Warsofsky said. \u201cThey\u2019re great, great human beings. They\u2019re great guys, a high character, and they care about one another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every locker room, of course, claims to be tight-knit, but the Sharks\u2019 closeness has manifested itself in ways manufactured and organic: Just for example, Ryan Reaves purchasing a shark tooth necklace<\/a> to be the team\u2019s player of the game award, Reaves and equipment manager Mike Aldrich behind the team-wide black Adidas tracksuits they wear on road trips, the team gatherings that Tyler and Cat Toffoli spearhead, and Nedeljkovic buying nickname caps for the entire team.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also what we don\u2019t see.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bond that we have, road trips, dinners with the guys, guys staying close, hanging out, days off, whatever it is,\u201d alternate captain Mario Ferraro said. \u201cYou\u2019d think that that would kind of be a standard everywhere, but I’ve been on a lot of teams, and it isn’t always the case. I\u2019ve played with a lot of different players and a lot of different groups of guys, and I think that this is one of the closest groups that we\u2019ve had. It shows in ways that you wouldn’t see, and it’s definitely a big part of winning as a group.\u201d<\/p>\n Macklin Celebrini<\/p>\n It\u2019s also easier to believe you can win every game when you have one of the best players in the world on your side.<\/p>\n The 19-year-old\u2019s emergence as an MVP candidate is the headline story of the Sharks\u2019 season, but lots of other youngsters have also starred.<\/p>\n Collin Graf and Zack Ostapchuk have become reliable NHL\u2019ers. Will Smith, William Eklund, Igor Chernyshov, Michael Misa, Sam Dickinson, and Yaroslav Askarov, all 23-and-under, have shown flashes of brilliance.<\/p>\n Nedeljkovic noted, too, and this is a tribute to the closeness of the team, that the Sharks want to live up to Celebrini\u2019s standard.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the rest of us, we’ve gotta step it up for him,\u201d Nedeljkovic said. \u201cYou see how hard he works, how bad he wants to win. It should just drive the rest of us to want to do it. Like I just talked about doing it for each other, that’s our leader, that’s our guy.\u201d<\/p>\n Once again, it\u2019s a circular relationship.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to be 10 percent better every single day as much as I can, so that way when we get into a game and he turns over a puck at the blueline, and they come down on a breakaway, he’s got that belief in me that I’m going to bail him out,\u201d Nedeljkovic said. \u201cVice versa, just like if I give up a bad goal, I’ve got that same belief that he’s going to make up for it in some way. He’s going to set somebody up or he’s going to bury it. That’s how we should all look at it. He’s going to do his thing, but the rest of us got to do ours.\u201d<\/p>\n Wins<\/p>\n And of course, you need results.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to believe that you can win when you don\u2019t, which has been a Sharks\u2019 ailment for years.<\/p>\n Their first win after a 0-4-2 start, 6-5 in overtime at the New York Rangers, was obviously important.<\/p>\n Celebrini netted a hat trick and five points in the victory.<\/p>\n Their first win against a Stanley Cup contender, 3-2 in OT over the Colorado Avalanche on Nov. 1, an Askarov masterpiece, stood out to William Eklund.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a big one for us,\u201d Eklund said.<\/p>\n A week later, Mario Ferraro was the first Shark to publicly say \u201cplayoffs,”<\/a> a curse word in San Jose since 2019, after the Sharks beat the defending champion Florida Panthers 3-1 in another Askarov masterpiece.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s no easy game, every team is a good team in this league, but teams that are higher up in the standings\u2014that are maybe favorites and projected to compete for a Stanley Cup\u2014we beat those teams this year,\u201d Ferrari said. \u201cWe know that we can compete against anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n In mid-December, the Sharks pulled off the greatest comeback in franchise regular-season history, coming back from down 5-1 in the third period to shock the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-5 in OT.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just a team that’s come together,\u201d Reaves said afterwards. \u201cWe’ve gone on a stretch that gives us confidence. When you build that confidence, you start realizing that you have something special and you can do something with it.\u201d<\/p>\n