The San Jose Sharks’ 2026-27 Schedule Brings Expectations They Haven’t Faced in Years – The Hockey Writers – San Jose Sharks

For the better part of a decade, the San Jose Sharks entered each season with a familiar sense of low stakes. The rebuild years asked for patience, not results, and the schedule release was little more than a formality. This year is different. When the NHL released the 84-game slate for all 32 teams on Thursday, it arrived at a franchise carrying something it has not felt since 2019: Expectations.

The transformation has been swift and total. Only one player, winger Collin Graf, remains from the last-place 2023-24 roster. In his place is a team built to compete, headlined by a genuine superstar and reinforced by an aggressive offseason. After finishing just four points behind the Los Angeles Kings for the final Western Conference wild-card spot last season, the Sharks are no longer building toward something distant. They are chasing the postseason now.

The centrepiece of that ambition is Macklin Celebrini. His sophomore campaign was one for the ages, as he set the franchise single-season record with 115 points, surpassing Hall of Famer Joe Thornton’s mark of 114. He then took the world stage by storm, winning a Winter Olympic silver with Canada while leading the entire tournament with five goals and earning a spot on the Olympic All-Star team.

A 19-year-old franchise cornerstone playing at that level changes everything about how a season is viewed, and the fact that Celebrini has been the cover star of EA’s Sports’ NHL 27 makes things much more interesting for the youngster.

A Young Core With Real Upside

Celebrini is not carrying the load alone. Michael Misa, the second-overall pick in 2025, enters his sophomore season looking to build on an uneven but promising rookie campaign. Ivar Stenberg, the second-overall selection last month, skated with the Sharks for the first time at development camp in late June and represents another high-end talent joining the pipeline. The young core that San Jose spent years accumulating is finally arriving together.

Around that youth, general manager Mike Grier added the veteran spine the roster lacked. The revamped defence now features Jacob Trouba, Darnell Nurse, and Michael Kesselring, while Mason Marchment deepens a forward group that already had considerable skill. It is a roster constructed not to develop slowly, but to win games in the present.

Nurse, who witnessed the Sharks improve last season before joining them, sees a team on the rise. “Last year, you saw the evolution of the game management and doing the right things at the right time,” he said. “As a player, being in the league for almost 12 years now, you see teams continue to evolve, grow, and get better and better at the little nuances of the game.”

October Will Set the Tone

The schedule itself presents an immediate challenge. Eight of San Jose’s first 15 games are against teams that made the playoffs last season, including home-and-away matchups against the Ottawa Senators and Boston Bruins. The Sharks open at home against the Florida Panthers on Oct. 1 before a difficult early stretch that includes a six-game road trip from Oct. 15 to 24.

History suggests this is exactly where the Sharks must improve. San Jose went winless in its first six games last season and posted a combined October record of 9-29-5 over the last four seasons. A team with playoff aspirations cannot dig itself an early hole and expect to climb out. The margin, as last season proved, is razor-thin.

That is the weight that comes with expectations. For years, a slow start was simply part of the rebuilding process, absorbed without consequence. Now, every early loss carries meaning, and every point in October could be the difference between a playoff berth and another spring on the outside. The Sharks wanted this pressure. They built their roster specifically to earn it.

The schedule release is interesting, but it is not usually the biggest day on the hockey calendar. For San Jose, it marked something more significant: the official start of a season in which patience is no longer the goal. With Celebrini leading a rising young core and a veteran supporting cast now in place, the Sharks are expected to take a real step forward. On Thursday, they finally got to see the road that will take them there.