The San Jose Sharks will be more than 3,000 miles from home when they visit the Boston Bruins on Monday afternoon, but calling it a homecoming game is not far-fetched.
Four Sharks who could play their first-ever NHL game against Boston will feel comfortable at TD Garden. The group consists of Massachusetts natives Will Smith, Collin Graf and Henry Thrun, and last summer’s No. 1 overall draft pick Macklin Celebrini, who won the Hobey Baker Award as a 17-year-old at Boston University last season.
The Sharks, who are three games into a five-game road trip, have lost five of six following a 4-1 defeat at the New York Islanders on Saturday. Barclay Goodrow scored the lone goal as the Sharks missed goaltender Yaroslav Askarov (illness) and leading scorer Tyler Toffoli (lower-body injury).
After being benched last weekend, Smith is gaining confidence as a 19-year-old NHL rookie. The No. 4 overall pick in 2023 made a highlight-reel, spin-o-rama pass to Mikael Granlund that nearly resulted in an earlier goal in New York.
“Trying to be better every game, and just trying to create as much offense as I can and also be reliable (defensively),” Smith said. “I think it’s the kind of player I am, that I could try to create some offense in different ways.”
According to another Massachusetts native in first-year San Jose coach Ryan Warsofsky, Smith is not going through it alone. Graf’s eight NHL games this season have been a microcosm of the young team’s ups and downs, and he actually was set to be scratched Saturday if not for Toffoli sitting out.
“He’s finding that it’s a big boy’s game and you’re going to have to be able to compete for pucks, win pucks,” Warsofsky said. “If you want to create offense, you’ve got to win some 50-50 pucks. It’s our whole team, we just don’t win enough 50-50 pucks.”
Celebrini entered Sunday as the NHL’s third-leading rookie scorer with 32 points in 36 games, including 13 goals.
The Bruins had back-to-back wins before a heartbreaking loss on Saturday. They fell outside the playoff race after surrendering two extra-attacker goals in the third period of an eventual 6-5 shootout loss to the Ottawa Senators.
David Pastrnak’s third straight three-point effort helped the Bruins climb out of an early 2-0 hole. In the end, though, a slow start hurt just as much as an inability to close in the waning minutes.
“That’s obviously on us, can’t happen, especially in the games like this where this is a big game and we should be excited (because) big points are on the table,” Pastrnak said.
Charlie McAvoy is expected to miss his third straight game due to injury, while fellow defenseman Hampus Lindholm continues to work his way back from a lower-body ailment that has sidelined him since November.
With a short-handed unit, goaltender Jeremy Swayman has faced more than 40 shots in three straight games. That trend had not hurt before Saturday, although opportunities to bounce back will come fast with four games in six days ahead.
The Bruins’ struggles also trickled to captain Brad Marchand, who was absent from Saturday’s overtime and shootout in what Joe Sacco called a coach’s decision.
“(Sacco is) going to make decisions based on how he feels each guy is playing each night. I get it,” Marchand said. “Next time, I need to do better. … My details weren’t good enough, and in a game like that, they have to be spot on.”
The interim coach knows that Marchand will be ready for the continuation of an important stretch.
“Knowing Marchy and the way he prepares, the way he works, he’ll be ready to go. He’s dialed in. … We’re on the same page,” Sacco said.
–Field Level Media
