The San Jose Sharks are back in a playoff spot.
It’s their first time since Mar. 14, after a 4-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs, their fourth-straight win.
The Sharks are now tied with the Nashville Predators with 79 points, but San Jose has a game in hand.
There are two ways that I look at this triumph.
Credit, of course, to the San Jose Sharks for how they manhandled a sleepy Maple Leafs squad, clearly playing out the string. Toronto looked like a team that had just fired their GM and were playing for a potential lame duck coach. At times, in a clear role reversal from recent history, Team Teal was varsity and the Blue and White was JV.
This also, however, felt like a learning lesson for the Sharks.
This was a game, honestly, that should’ve never been in question late, and was, until Adam Gaudette potted an empty netter. The Leafs looked that zonked out. This was a game that a superior opponent, after San Jose took a 2-0 first period lead, could’ve come back from.
Head coach Ryan Warsofsky certainly saw room for improvement, the type that you hope to see from the Sharks as they become a championship-caliber side.
“Just managing the pucks through the neutral zone would be one [improvement],” Warsofsky said.
An immature team does not value the puck as much as it should. Also?
“Having an awareness of we played back-to-back, we want to get four lines rolling. We want to have short shifts and roll them over,” Warsofsky said. “There’s moments, when we get stuck out there, and longer shifts is where we get in trouble.”
The power play also wasn’t the hammer that it could be.
The Sharks, frankly, may not be deep and experienced enough to put their foot, consistently, on an opponent’s throat yet.
But it would behoove them to learn quick, with the Predators coming to SAP Center this Saturday.
Two-time Stanley Cup winner Barclay Goodrow saw it another way, focusing on the positive, which makes sense too.
“We won the game 4-1. A win’s a win, it’s two points,” Goodrow said. “It’s hard enough to get a win in this league, especially this time of year. We’re not getting picky.”
At this point last year, the Sharks had 50 points and were 39 points out of the second wild card spot. San Jose is a staggering 29 points ahead of last year’s pace, but of course, they’re still far away from a championship standard. Maybe that’s when how you win really counts.
The San Jose Sharks are getting there. And they’re one significant step on the way, according to their leader.
“The group in there believes in it. We can write about it and we can talk about it all we want. But when someone believes in something and they believe in each other, that’s when you make moves, that’s when you make strides, and that’s where you see a lot of success come from,” Warsofsky said. “That group is extremely coachable. They’re great, great human beings. They’re great guys, a high character, and they care about one another. That’s what’s so powerful.”
Ryan Warsofsky
Warsofsky, on Ostapchuk tonight: “He just gets better and better. He’s a big man that can skate. The play he makes at the end of the game, probably not a lot of people notice, but he goes through that guy on the wall, wins the puck on the wall. Ices the game. Did a really good…
— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) April 3, 2026
William Eklund
Eklund, on his late third period shot block: “That’s the sort of thing we got to do here. I think everybody knows when it’s time to lay the body on the line, you gotta do it. It was my time.”
— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) April 3, 2026
Collin Graf
Barclay Goodrow
Goodrow, on how the San Jose Sharks have bounced back from their recent six-game losing streak:
It’s a testament to the character in the room, the maturity that we’ve shown throughout this year, to bounce back, realize what we have to do to turn it around.
