{"id":675624,"date":"2026-10-01T02:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T02:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/675624\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T02:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T02:45:13","slug":"san-jose-sharks-with-new-additions-to-be-tested-by-florida-panthers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/675624\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks, with new additions, to be tested by Florida Panthers"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE \u2013 The San Jose Sharks feel they\u2019ve taken significant steps<\/a> as an organization to improve their defense, add depth and scoring punch<\/a> to their forward group, and support their goaltenders with some more structured play.<\/p>\n

Now they face the perfect opponent to see how far they\u2019ve really come.<\/p>\n

The Sharks begin the 2026-27 regular season on Thursday at home against the Florida Panthers, who, after an offseason of reloading, look plenty capable of winning their third Stanley Cup in four years.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Panthers opened the season on Tuesday with a 1-0 overtime win<\/a> over the defending Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s get right into it,\u201d Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said of having the Panthers as their first opponent in an 84-game regular season. \u201cLet\u2019s get thrown right into the fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Panthers still have several players<\/a> who were a key part of their Cup-winning team in 2024, including center Aleksander Barkov, a three-time winner of the Selke Award as the NHL\u2019s best defensive forward, plus wingers Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett, among others, who were all Olympians earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The Panthers also acquired winger Brady Tkachuk<\/a> from the Ottawa Senators and, for just a little extra truculence, signed defenseman Radko Gudas and wingers Garnet Hathaway and Bokondji Imama as free agents.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the best teams in the last four or five years of what they bring to the table and how they play. I think every team kind of aspires to play that type of hockey,\u201d Warsofsky said. \u201cThey\u2019re competitive, they\u2019re heavy, they\u2019re physical. You\u2019ve got to fight for every inch, and I think great for our group.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Sharks, who begin the season with genuine playoff aspirations after a seven-year postseason drought, feel they\u2019re better equipped to handle any challenge, including a physical one.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a good hockey team, too,\u201d Warsofsky said. \u201cLet\u2019s not forget that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a bigger team.<\/p>\n

The Sharks have 6-foot-5, 215-pound Mason Marchment on the top line with Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith, plus a new defensive pair: 6-5 Michael Kesselring and 6-4 Darnell Nurse. Jacob Trouba, at 6-3, will be paired with the 6-2 Nolan Allan. Dmitry Orlov, a notorious open-ice hitter, will be paired with rookie Luca Cagnoni.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve talked a lot about our identity of being intense and hard to play against, and that comes in with physicality as well,\u201d Sharks center Alexander Wennberg said. \u201cWe have a lot of big defensemen that can lay the body, same thing with the forwards. It is a great test.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trouba, Orlov, Nurse and Barclay Goodrow have recent playoff history with the Panthers. Trouba and Goodrow were on the 2023-24 New York Rangers team that lost to Florida in the Eastern Conference Final; Orlov was with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2025 when they, too, lost to the Panthers in the third round.<\/p>\n

Nurse was with the Edmonton Oilers in their 2024 and 2025 meetings with the Panthers in the Cup Final. Florida won in seven games in 2024 and in six games in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a great team,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cObviously, a lot of guys that have done a lot of winning on so many different stages, and then the team, a lot of them have been together for a while, so it\u2019s going to be a great test for us coming out of the gate, one that I feel like we\u2019ve been working towards and preparing for since well before camp.\u201d<\/p>\n

As much respect as they have for what the Panthers have accomplished, the Sharks have their own weapons, young as they are.<\/p>\n

Five of the Sharks\u2019 top nine forwards projected to play tonight are all 21 or younger. That includes Smith, 21, and Celebrini, 20, on the top line and Michael Misa, 19, and Igor Chernyshov, 20, in the middle six.<\/p>\n

The now-19-year-old Ivar Stenberg, selected second overall by the Sharks at the NHL draft in June, is slated to start on a line with Wennberg and 24-year-old winger Collin Graf, who is entering his third full season as a pro.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s as talented a forward group as the Sharks, who are 0-2-2 in their last four season-openers, have had in years. Now they start the season with a massive test.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a dream,\u201d Stenberg said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to really put into words on what\u2019s going to happen, but a big dream, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

ALTERNATE CAPTAINS ANNOUNCED<\/p>\n

The Sharks announced their four alternate captains<\/a> for the season in Tyler Toffoli, Wennberg, Goodrow and Nurse. Toffoli, Wennberg and Goodrow also served as alternate captains last season.<\/p>\n

Goodrow and Wennberg will be the team\u2019s alternate captains for home games, and Toffoli and Nurse will wear the \u2018A\u2019 on the road.<\/p>\n

Celebrini was named the 11th full-time captain in Sharks history last Friday.<\/p>\n

NEDELJKOVIC SICK<\/p>\n

Alex Nedeljkovic did not practice Wednesday, with Warsofsky saying the goalie was feeling \u201cunder the weather.\u201d Nedeljkovic\u2019s illness was not expected to prevent him from dressing for today\u2019s game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2013 The San Jose Sharks feel they\u2019ve taken significant steps as an organization to improve their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5127],"tags":[2616,2617,5,2614,1180,4,519,168,5306,5305,2618,1780,2615,58047,2619,43],"class_list":["post-675624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose-sharks","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-hockey","tag-inside-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-nhl","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sanjose","tag-sanjosesharks","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-sharks","tag-sharks-alert","tag-social-alert","tag-south-bay","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117363364551719584","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}