Sharks Are 2-0-0, But an Old Flaw Is Creeping In

With 1.3 seconds left in the second period Saturday night, Quinton Byfield beat Yaroslav Askarov short-side on the power play, and the San Jose Sharks lost most of a lead they had spent 20 minutes building. It was the kind of goal that should not happen, a back-breaker in the final tick of a period, and it set the tone for a third period the Sharks spent mostly hanging on. They still won, 5-4 in overtime. That is becoming the theme.

Two games into the season, San Jose is 2-0-0 for the first time since 2021-22, with back-to-back overtime wins, something the franchise had never done to open a season. The scoresheet is full of the right names. Igor Chernyshov had two goals against the Los Angeles Kings, including the winner off a Macklin Celebrini feed. Luca Cagnoni won the opener in overtime against the Florida Panthers. The skill is real, and it is showing up early. So is the problem underneath it.

In both wins, the Sharks built a lead and could not close it out. Against the Kings, they went up 4-2 on Chernyshov’s backhand at 4:08 of the third and then stopped playing. Erik Haula pulled Los Angeles within one at 10:21. Artemi Panarin tied it at 15:00. From there, the Kings owned the overtime, hoarding the puck and daring San Jose to take it back, until Celebrini stripped a gassed Byfield and sprung Chernyshov the other way. San Jose was outshot 12-7 in the third and 35-25 on the night. They won a game they did not play well in.

This Is Exactly What Sank Them Last Season

None of this is new. The third-period collapse was the signature flaw of the Sharks’ 2025-26 season, the thing that turned leads into losses and left them four points short of a playoff spot when it was over. They outscored their problems for stretches, and it worked until it didn’t. Watching them bleed a two-goal lead in October is watching the same movie with a better cast.

That is what stings about it. Grier spent the summer and real money and started a full rebuild specifically to fix this, bringing in Jacob Trouba, Darnell Nurse, and Michael Kesselring to add the size and the calm the team did not have late in games. Two nights in, the newcomers have looked fine. Cagnoni earned a job out of camp and has contributed. The defense is better on paper and better to watch. But a rebuilt blue line has not yet changed the thing that actually matters, which is what this team does with a lead in the final ten minutes.

Some of it is just age. Young teams sit back, invite the forecheck, and lose their structure when the game gets heavy, and the Sharks are still one of the youngest teams in the league. The Byfield goal to end the second was a veteran play against a group that is not there yet. Collin Graf was a stick-length from knocking the puck away before Byfield picked the corner. Those are the margins that separate closing a game out from surviving it.

Warsofsky Said It Himself

The coach is not buying the record, and that is the most encouraging part. Ryan Warsofsky watched his team win and still came out swinging. “We won the game, that’s good, but we gotta get going here,” he said. “We can put the puck in the net, but we’re trying to win a lot of hockey games and go do something in the spring. And you have to play a certain way, or you won’t. We can’t just rely on skill.”

That is the whole thing in four sentences. The Sharks can win shootouts most nights because Celebrini, Chernyshov, and the rest can score with anyone. But teams that play into May are the ones that win the quiet minutes, protect a 4-2 lead, and make the other team earn the net. San Jose has not done that yet, and it is the single biggest thing standing between a fun start and a real season.

Two wins are two wins, and nobody in that room is apologizing for the points. The start is genuinely better than most expected, the overtime drama has been a blast, and the young core is delivering. But the third periods are a warning, not a quirk, and the Sharks know it because they lived it last season. They got away with it against the Kings. The Dallas Stars are next on Monday. At some point, a lead they let slip is not going to come back.