The San Jose Sharks are gearing up to play the Vegas Golden Knights in 33 days to kick off the 2025-26 season.
In honor of that, let’s take a look at the Sharks’ history with the number 33, a history that dates back to their inaugural 1991-92 season.
Dale Craigwell, the Sharks’ tenth-round pick in the 1991 NHL Draft, made his NHL debut during the 1991-92 season. He played 32 games and recorded 16 points during his first partial season with the Sharks. He’d end up playing parts of three seasons with the Sharks, playing a total of 98 games and tallying a career total of 29 points.
Craigwell would never play in the NHL again after departing the Sharks following the 1993-94 season, but his Bay Area ties didn’t end there. He’d return to professional hockey for the 1995-96 season as a member of the International Hockey League’s San Francisco Spiders.
The Sharks’ fifth-round pick in the 1992 Draft, Marcus Ragnarsson, would be the next to wear the number 33. He’d only wear it for a single season, though, as he’d change to the number 10 following his rookie season.
Ragnarsson had a long stint with the Sharks, playing in 519 games for the team in teal, recording 153 points in the process.
In the middle of the 2002-03 season, Ragnarsson would be moved to the Philadelphia Flyers, where he’d finish his NHL career. Following the 2003-04 season, he’d return to his native Sweden, where he played until he retired following the 2010-11 season. Currently, Ragnarsson is the head coach of Almtuna IS in the HockeyAllsvenskan.
Veteran enforcer Marty McSorley took over the number 33 from Ragnarsson for the 1996-97 season. The defenseman spent two seasons with the Sharks, playing in 113 games for the team in teal. During that time, he only recorded 28 points but had a whopping 326 penalty minutes. After departing the Bay Area, McSorley spent two more seasons in the NHL and one in the IHL before he called it a career.
Once McSorley departed the Sharks, they needed another enforcer, and they found one who also wore the number 33. Brantt Myhres spent two seasons with the Sharks, starting with the 1998-99 season. In total, he played 43 games for the Sharks and tallied 213 penalty minutes.
It would be nearly a decade before another player wore the number 33, with goaltender Brian Boucher taking it for the 2007-08 season and beyond. Boucher played some of the best hockey of his career as a member of the Sharks, but it was in a small sample size. In 27 games split across two seasons, the journeyman netminder had a .919 save percentage and a goals against average of 2.12.
After the 2008-09 season, Boucher returned to the Philadelphia Flyers, where he started his career, before heading to Switzerland for the 2013-14 season and subsequently calling it a career after one season overseas. Today, Boucher is an analyst for both TNT and NBC Sports Philadelphia. His son, Tyler, is also currently a prospect in the Ottawa Senators organization.
After Boucher’s departure, it would be over a decade before another player wore the number 33. That player would ironically be a former draft pick of the Ottawa Senators himself, defenseman Fredrik Claesson. Claesson had a very short stint with the Sharks during the 2020-21 season, where he played just four games for the team in teal. Ultimately, he was quickly traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning in exchange for goaltender Magnus Chrona. Currently, Claesson is playing for Dynamo Moskva in the Russian Kontinental Hockey League.
Goaltender Adin Hill would be the next one to wear the number for the Sharks during the 2021-22 season. He appeared in 25 games for the Sharks after he was acquired from the Arizona Coyotes. The following summer, he would be dealt to the Vegas Golden Knights, where he truly found his form. Last season with Vegas, he played in 50 games, recording a 2.47 goals against average and a .906 save percentage.
The most recent player to wear the number 33 for the Sharks was defenseman Calen Addison. The Sharks acquired Addison early in the 2023-24 season in an attempt to add some offensive skill to the blue line, and simply put, the experiment quickly failed. Although he played 60 games for the Sharks and recorded 15 points in that time span, he struggled in his own end and overall didn’t bring what the Sharks had hoped. They chose not to offer him a qualifying offer, and he’s been in the American Hockey League since.
For this coming season, Addison is set to play with the New Jersey Devils’ AHL affiliate, the Utica Comets, after spending time with the Henderson Silver Knights and the Springfield Thunderbirds last season.