The San Jose Sharks have been one of the surprise teams of the 2025-26 NHL campaign, thanks in large part to the contributions of former first overall pick Macklin Celebrini, as well as fellow young players Will Smith and William Eklund.
Right now, the Sharks are one point out of the second Wild Card postseason spot in the tightly-packed Western Conference, and head coach Ryan Warsofsky has helped to get plenty out of the group that has so much upside and potential yet untapped.
Warsofsky recently stated that he's leaned on the advice of current New York Rangers head coach Mike Sullivan, who guided the Pittsburgh Penguins to consecutive Stanley Cup wins in 2016 and 2017, for both advice and guidance.
“We chat, and we talk a lot through the season and summer, Sully has been awesome for me and my career, such a big mentor,” Warsofsky said via The Frankly Hockey podcast. “Golf with him and talk to him about, a lot of times he was trying to talk me out of coaching, and climbing the ladder because of what he's gone through. But a lot of it has been talking about the challenges we have day to day and getting your teams to play the right way, maybe it's conversations – I've talked to him a lot about when he's coached Sid (Sidney Crosby) and when he coached Phil Kessel and (Kris) Letang and the whole crew in Pittsburgh, the challenges they had.
“And now he's got a very prominent job in trying to turn the New York Rangers around. I'm very thankful to have that relationship with Sully, he's been so important for me and my career.”
Sharks sophomore forward Macklin Celebrini is the real deal
The Sharks can count themselves fortunate that their lean years yielded multiple high draft selections, including the one they used to select Celebrini first overall in 2024.
Celebrini has been nothing short of spectacular so far in his young NHL career and is currently ranked fourth overall in total scoring behind only Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, and Nikita Kucherov.
So far this campaign, Celebrini has tallied 24 goals with 48 assists in 49 games, a pace of 120 points over 82 games.
