SAN JOSE – San Jose Sharks center Will Smith lost just six of 41 games with Boston College last season. Fellow rookie Macklin Celebrini lost just 10 of 40 with Boston University.
Both could experience more losses in a few weeks this season than they did all last year.
Such is the challenge — both physical and mental — high draft picks like Smith and Celebrini might have to face this year as they transition from highly successful college programs to a Sharks team that is again expected to finish at or near the bottom of the NHL standings.
“I don’t think I’ve actually ever been on a bad team,” Smith said, not referencing the Sharks. “Coming into this year, we’re trying to win, and I try to bring that winning mentality to wherever I go.”
With the additions — and subtractions — they made this summer, the Sharks expect to improve upon their NHL-worst record of 19-54-9 last season. Still, the Sharks are not only forecasted to miss the playoffs for the sixth consecutive season, but it appears they’ll have a good chance of winning the NHL Draft Lottery for a second straight year.
Online sports gambling sites, for instance, have the Sharks finishing with 64 or 65 points, the fewest predicted total among all NHL teams.
That would mean plenty of losses and more than a few losing streaks. Last season, the Sharks had four losing skids of at least nine games.
The Sharks, with a bolstered lineup, will likely be able to avoid a similar disgrace this season. But how concerned should they be that all of those losses, assuming they happen, will have a cumulative effect on a rookie’s confidence, especially one who has never lost that much before?
“Winning is really hard, but how we deal with these downs may be even harder,” Sharks center Nico Sturm said. “If you have a great game, team wins, you have a goal, you feel good, very easy to get up the next day and come the rink.
“But when you’ve been thumped — I think we had two stretches of 10 games in a row that we lost last year — it’s hard to get up the next day, it really is, to put your put your head down and go back to work.”
Like most rookies, Celebrini and Smith know they will face some adversity in their first professional seasons. When it happens as a team, they will likely look to the veterans to see how they react.
“I think as older guys, it falls on us how we conduct ourselves,” Sharks defenseman Matt Benning said. “Because as a younger guy who’s never been here before, what do you do? It’s just human nature. You look at how the guys are handling it that have been around for a while.
“So I think the older guys, or the guys have been in the league of few years, there’s going to be a lot of responsibility on us to conduct ourselves in a way that will help the young guys get through whatever they need to get through.”
Sharks defenseman Henry Thrun experienced it firsthand when he transitioned from college to the NHL. In his last season at Harvard, in 2022-23, before he was traded to the Sharks and signed with the team, the Crimson went 24-8-2.
Thrun, remarkably, still hasn’t won 24 games with the Sharks. They went 2-5-1 after his arrival in 2023 and were 9-36-6 with him in the lineup last season.
“It’s honestly the hardest thing to adjust to, both from a team and a personal perspective,” Thrun said. “In college, obviously (Smith’s) team last year was pretty good and from an individual perspective, he had a good year. I was kind of in a similar boat coming out of college, where I had a good career and had a good team, and you switch things up.
“There’s a lot of learning that goes on in the NHL. You, unfortunately, learn through your mistakes, and it’s hard. You’ve got to keep believing in yourself and keep persevering. That’s the way you stay upbeat: the self-belief and kind of unwavering confidence that you are there for a reason.”
The Sharks had to give Celebrini and Smith the best possible chance to succeed this year and brought in a handful of veteran players to provide insulation.
For Thursday’s season-opener against the St. Louis Blues, it appears Celebrini will be on a line with Tyler Toffoli and William Eklund, and Smith will play with Mikael Granlund and Fabian Zetterlund.
Smith and Celebrini got a taste of the NHL pace during the preseason, but that first NHL regular season game will be a massive eye-opener.
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“The speed of the game, the pace that it’s played at, the detail it’s played out, and it’s grown men,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said of the biggest difference between college hockey and the NHL. “In college, you’re against maybe a 23-year-old. Here, you might go against a 32-year-old who’s 6-foot-4 and 225 pounds in front of the net.
“But the biggest thing from my perspective is the speed of the game. When we talked about (Saturday’s preseason game) being fast against Vegas’s full lineup, it doesn’t become close what’s going to come Thursday night. And we’ve got to be mentally prepared for that.”
That’s what Smith is trying to do.
“It’s the best league in the world, and every night’s going to be a battle,” Smith said. “We’re going into every night trying to win. There’s going to be ups and downs, so stay tough through those and try and get through them.”
