San Jose Sharks 2024-25 season preview: Playoff chances, projected points, roster rankings
By Dom Luszczyszyn, Sean Gentille and Shayna Goldman
If the hardest part of the San Jose Sharks' teardown is complete, let it be said that it was relatively brief, impressively ugly and extremely fruitful. Plenty of teams commit to the tank and fail to land a prospect of Macklin Celebrini , drafted No. 1 in June.
In that regard, one of GM Mike Grier's goals has been accomplished. The franchise has now taken steps to move into its next phase, adding a few more legitimate NHL players to the mix and no longer trying to be as bad as possible. Will they succeed?
The projection
There should be no shock that the Sharks end up at the very bottom after last year's deplorable 47-point season. That's a tough hole to dig out of, even with a ton of reinforcements on the way via top prospects and key free-agent adds. The Sharks' projection represents an 18-point improvement, with a 99 percent chance that last year's lows won't be matched.
Still, it's a projection that comes in even lower than where they started last season at 66.9 points. How does that add up?
It's the result of the players looking even worse than expected last season and lowering the team's collective floor heading into this season. Almost every returning player has a lot to prove — that last season was a "less than the sum-of-its-parts" event that won't be repeated. This year's version doesn't have Tomas Hertl leading the way either, which takes some bite out of the boost brought on by the newcomers.
Maybe the Sharks will surprise with an unlikely showing of competence, but the odds are on this being another long year in San Jose.
The big question
Can Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith make an immediate impact like past dynamic rookie duos?
If, a few years down the road, we're talking about the Sharks as a true playoff team — not just as a rebuilder or an up-and-comer — we're going to look at the 2024 NHL Draft Lottery as the true pivot point.
That wouldn't be incorrect; prospects of Celebrini's caliber are relatively rare, and adding one to a roster is the straightest path to big-picture relevance. It was thought of as the Celebrini lottery for a reason. He wasn't just the best player in NCAA hockey last season; he was the youngest. He wasn't just the top drafted prospect in the sport, according to Scott Wheeler's summer rankings ; he was in a tier at the top by himself, a combo of elite skill and substance that screams "high-end first-line center." Wheeler gave him franchise-player upside in his prospect tiers for a reason.
In plenty of ways, the Sharks will go as Celebrini goes. Getting lucky can be the toughest part.
All that might leave Smith, for some, as a bit of an afterthought — and that shouldn't be the case. The No. 4 overall pick in 2023, the leading scorer in college hockey last season and the No. 8 player in Wheeler's rankings, Smith also has the making of a foundational down-the-middle piece.
"I'll be shocked if he doesn't become a playmaking top-six center and PP1 creator," Wheeler wrote. "I expect him to become a big-time point producer. His individual skill and creativity are rare. I thought about ranking him higher (than No. 8)."
In other words, the Sharks would be in a decent position with Smith as their best-projected player. Being able to slot him at No. 2, though, could be the start of something special. And no matter what happens this season, their situation will be relatively rare; the two will become just the fifth rookie duo of the salary-cap era made up of two top-five picks. Here, we'll omit New Jersey's top-five defensive pair of Simon Nemec and Luke Hughes from last season, since it's less of an apples-to-apples comparison.
Expecting Celebrini and Smith to approach the immense immediate impact of Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane with the Chicago Blackhawks 17 years ago would be unfair; the two combined for a plus-14.6 Net Rating, led by Kane's 8.2, and immediately helped Chicago jump from 71 points to 88. They weren't just individually productive; they had a level of insulation from other up-and-coming stars such as Duncan Keith, Dustin Byfuglien, Patrick Sharp and Brent Seabrook that San Jose — Grier's solid offseason aside — cannot match. Chicago's cupboard, at least ahead of the Kane pick, was simply a little less bare.
Behind Toews-Kane: Auston Matthews (plus-7 Net Rating) and Mitch Marner (plus-4) with the 2016-17 Toronto Maple Leafs . Individually, the Sharks duo could come a bit closer to replicating that, with Celebrini playing the role of Matthews — but the idea that San Jose can play at a 95-point pace for any portion of the season, let alone its entirety as Toronto did, is beyond unlikely. Those Leafs were fifth in the NHL in goals, with five players (Matthews, Nazem Kadri , James van Riemsdyk , William Nylander and Connor Brown ) who scored 20 or more.
Celebrini and Smith's projections (and the Sharks' overall situation) put them much closer to Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart with the 2015-16 Buffalo Sabres . Reinhart (plus-4.4) was the more impactful player that season. That's a shade under Celebrini's plus-5 projection. Eichel, meanwhile, was at plus-0.5 — relatively close to Smith's plus-1. Outside of Ryan O'Reilly , the rookies didn't have much help from their fellow skaters. For that, they can thank the Tim Murray tank job that put them in position to select Eichel. Buffalo still finished with 81 points, though, owing mainly to solid goaltending from Chad Johnson, Linus Ullmark and Robin Lehner. That's about 15 points ahead of where we have the Sharks.
The biggest reason for optimism, whether among Sharks fans or the front office, is that all six of those forwards have delivered on their potential. Toews and Kane are Hall of Famers; Matthews is the best goal-scorer of his generation and, at times, an MVP; Eichel is a franchise center and the best forward on a Stanley Cup champion; and Reinhart finished the 2023-24 season with 57 goals and 12 first-place Selke Trophy votes.
The biggest reason for concern? Two of them — Eichel and Reinhart — did it elsewhere. Grier's next task is ensuring that doesn't happen to San Jose.
The wild card
Can Yaroslav Askarov succeed as a rookie behind the league's worst blue line?
The Sharks project to have the worst blue line in the league, which is going to make life difficult for their goaltenders. One of those goalies includes offseason-add Askarov, whose first real taste of NHL action will be a trial-by-fire experience.
Some goaltenders can jump from the NHL and thrive despite their surroundings. Igor Shesterkin is a prime example, after he was promoted from Hartford to New York. Lukas Dostal managed the chaos pretty well in Anaheim in 19 games in 2022-23, too. Both serve as positive experiences for the Sharks to learn from. Still, some wilt under the pressure and others struggled through the early goings, even with solid support in front of them — just take Andrei Vasilevskiy 's first two seasons.
The problem is, there is so much uncertainty around goaltending on a good day. There is even less for a goalie with just a three-game track record at this level. As ready as Askarov may look thanks to his athleticism and AHL experience in Milwaukee, there's no guarantee it will translate to the NHL immediately — especially with such a challenging workload ahead of him.
The definition of success for a goaltender in this environment may also differ from that of other goalies. A sparkling record probably shouldn't be expected. A steady progression from start to finish would be a plus. The key to success in this situation is ensuring Askarov doesn't look overwhelmed to the point that playing him in the NHL will hurt his development.
The strengths
Even under the most liberal definition of "strengths," this won't be a long section. The Sharks are the league's worst team and finding any bright spots is seriously difficult.
At the very least, they'll be more exciting to watch with a dynamic rookie center duo that has a real chance to make a splash. While Celebrini and Smith don't register as relative roster strengths yet, it's only a matter of time before they do. This is only the beginning of their uprising, and their youthful exuberance certainly has potential to grow into a strength as early as this season. Alex Wennberg 's shutdown ability should help put the duo in a strong position to succeed, giving them a real chance to surpass these projections.
The addition of Tyler Toffoli will also help with that. Connor Bedard had a difficult time last season partly due to the lack of support around him. Celebrini and Smith find themselves in a more favorable spot on that front, with Toffoli headlining the team's support system. He's an excellent five-on-five driver with a knack for creating chances and finding the net. That should pair well with either of the two kids and make life easier.
Toffoli is arguably San Jose's best player and, at the moment, is one of two skaters who exceeds expectations within his role. That's how bad things still are here.
San Jose has one other promising young rookie, the freshly acquired Askarov. Projecting him feels almost impossible given his small NHL sample size and the fact that he'll be behind this team's wretched defense. For now, he looks like he can be an average NHL starter — which on this team is a plus.
If not, the team does have goaltending depth behind him — namely Mackenzie Blackwood , who was one of the only reasons a lot of games didn't end up 7-0 last season. Among goalies who started over 35 games last season, Blackwood ranked a respectable 18th in goals saved above expected.
Blackwood is underrated as a capable 1B, given what's been in front of him. If that's his role this year and Askarov shows promise, goaltending is one box the Sharks can check off as a modest success.
As for the rest...
The weaknesses
It's hard not to pile on when a team only managed 47 points last season and was outscored by 150 — both full-season lows in the cap era. The latter was the worst mark since the Ottawa Senators managed a gruesome minus-196 goal differential in 1993-94. San Jose was a historic kind of awful in 2023-24.
The good news is, we expect the Sharks to improve significantly, cutting their goal difference deficit in half next season with a projected minus-71 Net Rating. The bad news is, that still makes them the worst team in the league going into next season.
The reason for that is as simple as "not having enough good players," since only five of 20 grade out as above average and only three are above average relative to their role.
That latter point is crucial, as there's a big difference between Logan Couture on the top line and on the second line. The latter is an asset. The former is a liability, and that distinction is present all the way down San Jose's lineup. It puts a promising player such as William Eklund in a difficult place to succeed. It's what happens when a team is utterly devoid of difference-making talent. The Sharks were the only team without a player featured in our top 150.
That makes for a lot of sore spots throughout the lineup, which puts San Jose at an immediate disadvantage. It shows up front with not just a lack of true impact players, but also an outsized amount of considerable drags. The Sharks have three forwards — Barclay Goodrow , Nico Sturm and Luke Kunin — who carry a Net Rating under minus-10. While half the league also has one forward in that realm and several have two, the Sharks are the only team with three.
To make matters worse, the Sharks also have two defensemen in that same ballpark, Mario Ferraro and Marc-Edouard Vlasic , with Jan Rutta close to making it three. Only one other player in the league, Chicago's Kevin Korchinski , is at that same level.
The reason for that is the model has to make a lot more inferences about how good a defenseman is based on what happens while he is and isn't on the ice. All three players were heavily outscored at five-on-five and were badly outchanced. While they weren't the sole reason things went so disastrously for the Sharks last season, they were far from the solution.
There's a case to be made for Ferraro being a lot better than he looks here, given the difficulty of his environment. He didn't have a lot of help, but his matchups also weren't very grueling and he gave up a lot the other way. His tracked data doesn't speak to a player who contributes a lot with the puck in any zone either.
There isn't a single above-average defenseman on San Jose's roster, which is where a lot of the team's trouble comes from. The Sharks are a mess in their own zone thanks to the personnel at their disposal. San Jose's porous back end is why the Sharks are bottom-feeders, making life difficult for the rest of the roster.
In total, the Sharks fall 35 goals below average on their blue line alone (after accounting for how many games each player likely plays). The next worst team, Anaheim , is at minus-17.
The Ducks at least have promising prospects with potential to help improve that standing. Barring a surprise in training camp, the Sharks don't have as much luck in that department. San Jose's defensemen are in a different league and there isn't much immediate hope on the horizon, either. It's incredibly difficult to succeed under those conditions.
The Sharks did add Jake Walman and Cody Ceci to the roster; both have experience soaking up difficult minutes and could help ease the burden on the others. But in those situations, neither defender was the alpha, and that's the main issue with everyone on San Jose's blue line.
In a different situation in which each player is asked to do much less with the puck, some Sharks defenders might offer suitable support. Here, with no one able to take on that mantle, everyone is asked to do more than they can handle in roles that are too difficult.
It all leads to a domino effect that reverberates down the lineup, making everyone look a lot worse than they might actually be. The sum ends up a lot worse than its parts without a real driver from the back end. That may be why Ferraro's value tanks hardest as the player thrust most heavily into that role.
Maybe things change this year with more support sprinkled throughout the lineup. More likely though, it leads to more of the same and another difficult season — even if it's not as bad as last year.
The best case
Celebrini and Smith are an immediately potent dynamic duo, and Couture suits up for all 82 games up front. Someone — anyone — on the blue line steps up, Askarov is the answer, and the returning Sharks regress back to normal. It's enough to spring the Sharks toward relevance in the 80-point range.
The worst case
Smith doesn't make the cut and Celebrini has a Jack Hughes -like rookie season. Couture misses time, Toffoli stumbles as the guy and the rest of the team is exactly as bad as you remember. The Sharks are dead last, but this time they lose the lottery.
The bottom line
The odds are against the Sharks climbing out of the basement of the standings, but if a new-look coaching staff can work on the fundamentals and foster player development, at least this team will take a much-needed step forward in its long, grueling rebuilding process.
How the model works
How the model adjusts for context
Understanding projection uncertainty
Evolving Hockey
Natural Stat Trick
Hockey Reference
All Three Zones Tracking by Corey Sznajder
Read the other 2024-25 season previews here.
(Top photo of Macklin Celebrini: Thearon W. Hernderson / )
