Celebrini tallies another point, but Sharks’ winning streak ends in 7-3 loss to Lightning

SAN JOSE — The up-and-coming San Jose Sharks expected to take a step forward this year. Halfway through the season, the rest of the NHL is starting to take notice.

“I think teams are starting to realize that we’re dangerous,” second-year coach Ryan Warsofsky said before Saturday’s home game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The perennial contenders, on track to make their ninth straight playoff appearance with the top goal margin in the Eastern Conference, provided the young team one of its toughest tests yet. After climbing into the Western Conference’s final playoff spot with their last win, the Sharks (20-18-3) also got a reminder of the distance between them and teams such as Tampa Bay, which has made three Stanley Cups since the last playoff game in San Jose.

Barely six minutes expired Saturday afternoon inside the SAP Center before the Sharks were trailing by three goals and had switched goaltenders. Boos began to be heard from the capacity crowd of 17,435 after the Lightning (25-13-3) scored their sixth goal midway through the second period in an eventual 7-3 defeat.

“It’s tough to battle back against teams like that,” said veteran right winger Ryan Reaves. “Starts are important. You don’t want to be chasing the game for essentially 55 minutes. It’s not winning hockey. We’ve been doing a good job of that of late. This one got away from us.”

Pavol Regenda recorded a hat trick, Timothy Lilljegren assisted a pair of goals and Macklin Celebrini extended his points streak to 10 games, but the Sharks’ three-game winning streak came to an end. Tampa Bay improved to 7-0 since Dec. 20 and 14-4-3 overall away from home.

“We weren’t ready to play when they dropped the puck,” Warsofsky said. “First shift we give up a pizza right up the middle, a grade-A scoring chance, and from there on out, it felt like we were on our heels.”

The chippy, physical contest turned into a brawl that paused the game with 4:21 to go in the second period and resulted in more players in the penalty box than were left on the ice by the time it had subsided. Four Sharks and three Lightning players were penalized for a fight that involved every player on the ice except the goaltenders. Barclay Goodrow was given a 10-minute major, resulting in a 5-on-4 power play that Tampa Bay converted into a 7-2 advantage.

The Sharks took exception to a big hit delivered by J.J. Moser on Celebrini. William Eklund responded and things devolved from there.

“Anytime any player gets hit like that on our team, there’s going to be a response, but especially one of the best players in the world,” Reaves said. “You’ve got to send a message that you don’t do that to him.”

Brayden Point opened an early 1-0 lead with his 10th goal of the season, corralling a pass from Max Crozier and flicking a wrist shot over the left shoulder of Yaroslav Askarov, who was making his sixth straight start. Nikita Kucherov controlled the puck in the Sharks’ zone and passed ahead to Crozier, who found Point for the game’s first score 2:37 into the first period.

Darren Raddyish sent a slap shot past Askarov to make it 2-0 less than two minutes later and Brandon Hagel found the back of the net on a breakaway attempt that put the Sharks in a 3-0 hole with 13:14 still to play in the opening period. Warsofsky had seen enough.

Askarov, who led the Sharks to a 3-2 record over the past five games, took a seat on the bench and Alex Nedeljkovic put his pads on. The Lightning had put 10 shots on goal by the time Warsofsky switched goalies, and Nedeljkovic stopped 12 of their 16 shots the rest of the way.

“I think there were some goals there that he probably wants back, the second one being one of them,” Warsofsky said of his young goaltender. “Ask has been playing some pretty good hockey. We forget that he’s still developing as a goalie in this league to be a No. 1. This was probably a learning moment for him.”

Andrei Vasilevskiy blocked 19 of the Sharks’ 22 shots on goal, including a sensational save on a point-blank slap shot from Regenda after a tripping penalty put San Jose on the first power play of the game. The backup left wing got the last laugh and snuck a second-chance shot across the red line to cut the deficit to 3-1, converting the 5-on-4 opportunity, and later added his fourth goal of the season to make it 5-2 with 10:10 to play in the second period.

Regenda, who had three goals in 23 career games entering the afternoon, completed his first career hat trick with a putback goal with 3:49 to play.

“I was just in front of the net and got rewarded for it,” Regenda said. “Happy with that, but the game result was not really good. … We’ve got to wake up. They jumped on us. The first goal, I didn’t back-check all the way down and it cost us a goal. Then we just left them open.”

Lilljegren, in his first ice time since Dec. 18, was credited with assists on the Sharks’ first two goals, and Celebrini also helped set up the power-play score. The 19-year-old superstar has recorded points in his past 10 games, becoming the fourth teenager in the past decade with a double-digit points streak.

It was only fitting that Celebrini factored into the game against the Lightning and coach Jon Cooper, who also leads the Canadian national team and this week named Celebrini to its Olympic roster. Prior to puck drop, Cooper said he hadn’t gotten a chance to speak with Celebrini since finalizing the roster, knowing that they would get to connect in-person in San Jose, and praised him as a “generational” talent.

Celebrini’s assist increased his point total this season to 63, trailing only Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid for the most in the NHL. The next Sharks player on the list is Will Smith, with 29 points, which the two-time Stanley Cup champion coach described as “eye-opening.”

“That’s a massive gap. And he’s plus-13,” Cooper said, praising the team for finding its way into the playoff picture after finishing last in the league last year. “They’ve really come a long way. Their staff has done a phenomenal job with this team.”

Klingberg ‘day-to-day’

John Klingberg, the Sharks’ highest-scoring defenseman with nine goals this season, was questionable with a lower-body injury and eventually ruled out. The Sharks were down another defenseman by the end of the game after Shakir Mukhamadullin left with an undisclosed injury and did not return.

Warsofsky, however, wasn’t concerned with Klingberg’s long-term outlook, describing his status as “day-to-day.”

In his place, San Jose activated Liljegren, who had missed the past five games with an upper-body injury.

“Before he got injured, his game was trending in the right direction,” Warsofsky said of Liljegren. “Looking to get back in there and use his legs to defend, move pucks out of our backend. We’ve obviously seen it at times. We’d like to see it more.”

Misa takes ‘step in the right direction’ at World Juniors

Michael Misa scored his second goal of the World Juniors for Canada in a 7-1 rout of Slovakia on Friday to advance to the semifinals.

Misa, the Sharks’ No. 2 overall selection in the 2025 NHL draft, has totaled six points through five games. Warsofsky has been keeping tabs and called his effort in the quarterfinals the 18-year-old’s “best game” of the tournament and a “step in the right direction for him.”

Canada faces Czechia on Saturday in the semifinals. The winner of Sweden and Finland’s semifinal awaits the winner in the gold medal game.

“I think these next two games will probably be the toughest of the tournament, so those will be good tests for him,” said Warsofsky, who has liked what he’s seen from the 18-year-old so far. “He’s holding onto pucks. He’s making plays. The game is slowing down for him a little bit.”