Now that we know who will be on the San Jose Sharks' roster to start the 2026-27 season, it's time to look at who will play where when they take the ice on opening night.
Projected Forward Lines:
Mason Marchment - Macklin Celebrini - Will Smith
Ivar Stenberg - Alex Wennberg - Collin Graf
Igor Chernyshov - Michael Misa - Tyler Toffoli
Barclay Goodrow - Zack Ostapchuk - Kiefer Sherwood
Scratches: Brett Leason, Ty Dellandrea
The forward lines will likely remain exactly the same as they were in the Sharks' final preseason game against the Vegas Golden Knights. While an argument could be made to swap Sherwood and Toffoli, Ryan Warsofsky seemed to really like the top two lines during their time together, so it seems unlikely much will change there. Brett Leason will remain on the Sharks roster until Adam Gaudette is ready to return, then he'll likely be waived for the purpose of reassignment to the Barracuda. Dellandrea will cycle in as needed throughout the season.
Projected Defensive Pairings:
Darnell Nurse - Michael Kesselring
Luca Cagnoni - Jacob Trouba
Sam Dickinson - Dmitry Orlov
Scratches: Nolan Allan
This is where things got a little bit difficult. During preseason, Jacob Trouba played almost exclusively with Nolan Allan and logically, that would continue into the regular season. With that being said, since the Sharks opted to keep Sam Dickinson in the NHL, I'd assume they're not planning on sitting him in the press box when he could be developing in the American Hockey League. If they don't want Dickinson in the lineup, they could've easily kept Libor Hajek in the NHL as the seventh defenseman and allowed their 20-year-old prospect to regain his confidence at the AHL level.
Throughout the preseason, Dmitry Orlov split his time between playing with Dickinson and Luca Cagnoni. As a result, it was difficult to figure out where exactly to put them each in the lineup. Orlov and Cagnoni are both comfortable playing their off-side, which gives them some flexibility as well. Ultimately, I opted to put Cagnoni with Trouba simply so he doesn't have to play his off-hand while adapting to the NHL.
More than likely, the Sharks will scratch Dickinson and play Allan with Trouba and Cagnoni with Orlov. With that being said, given the lack of asset management in that approach, I prefer to see Dickinson in the lineup. If a team is keeping a 20-year-old in the NHL, they need to be on the ice. While sitting and watching can be valuable at times, Dickinson already has a full NHL season under his belt. In the past, I've been critical regarding the idea of sending Dickinson to the AHL based on how it has affected other players' development in recent years, but if it's between that or not playing, the choice is clear in my mind.
Goaltending:
Yaroslav Askarov
Alex Nedeljkovic
Heading into the preseason, I thought that there was a legitimate chance that the season began with Alex Nedeljkovic as the Sharks' starting netminder and Yaroslav Askarov as the backup. Askarov put in quite a bit of work during the summer though and looked like a much more confident goaltender during the preseason. Whether that'll be sustained in the regular season remains to be seen, as consistency has been his biggest issue to this point, but he did enough in my mind to maintain the starting job for the time being.
