For seven straight springs the San Jose Sharks have watched the playoffs from home, and for most of them nobody expected anything else. That changed last season, and it changed fast.
The Sharks went from 52 points to 86, a 34-point climb the Associated Press counted among the 10 largest single-season jumps of the past 30 years. They finished four points out of a playoff spot. And the reason sat in the middle of the top line.
The 115-point argument
Macklin Celebrini scored 45 goals and 115 points in 82 games, a franchise record and fourth in the NHL. He was a Ted Lindsay Award finalist, won Olympic silver with Canada, captained his country at the World Championship and was named the IIHF's male player of the year.
San Jose has responded the way franchises respond to a player like that. On July 29 it signed him to a five-year, $94 million extension, an $18.8 million average that is the highest in the league. On Sept. 25, with Joe Thornton delivering the news, it made him captain, the youngest in team history and the youngest in the NHL today. He is 20.
Grier stops collecting and starts buying
General manager Mike Grier spent three years accumulating picks. This summer he spent them.
He sent William Eklund to Ottawa for the No. 9 pick, used it on defenseman Keaton Verhoeff, and then went shopping for grown-ups: Darnell Nurse by trade from Edmonton, with San Jose absorbing his full $9.25 million cap hit; Jacob Trouba on a four-year deal; Michael Kesselring from Buffalo; and Mason Marchment on a five-year contract.
Marchment wears No. 27 for his late father, Bryan, who played for the Sharks.
Luck helped too. The Sharks jumped from ninth to second in the draft lottery and took Swedish forward Ivar Stenberg, who made the opening-night roster at 18.