A Shorthanded Sharks Team Passed Its First Adversity Test

Yaroslav Askarov came into Thursday night 0-4-0 in his previous four starts, a goalie on the ropes behind a team that could not stop blowing leads. He left Canadian Tire Centre with 41 saves, a Save of the Season candidate on his highlight reel, and the first regulation win of the San Jose Sharks’ season. On a night they were outshot 43-28 and badly short-handed, Askarov was the reason a 6-2 final looked comfortable.

It did not look comfortable in the moment. The Senators came in 7-3-0, poured 43 shots at Askarov, and ran up a 17-6 edge in third-period shots. San Jose spent long stretches pinned in its own zone. “We were under siege for the majority of that game,” head coach Ryan Warsofsky said afterwards. “I think he made some big saves at big times.” The signature one came at 18:04 of the second period, a diving glove stab on Drake Batherson that preserved a three-goal lead. “I know I was late,” Askarov said. “I was like, just dive to the right side.”

That the Sharks were in position to withstand it at all was the real achievement, because they did it without Alexander Wennberg. The veteran center is week-to-week with an upper-body injury, out in Ottawa, out Saturday in Boston, and likely longer. His value was never his three assists and zero goals.

It was the 20-plus minutes a night, the second-line role, the penalty kill, and the power play Macklin Celebrini said, “runs through him.” Covering that on the road against a hot team was exactly the kind of test San Jose had failed often enough to make this one matter.

The Graf Gamble Paid Off

Warsofsky’s answer to the Wennberg hole had raised eyebrows. Rather than hand the second-line center job to Michael Misa, the 2025 second-overall pick the organization hopes will eventually own it, he slid winger Collin Graf to the middle. It was a patch, a bet on hockey sense over any track record at the position, and it said plenty about how far Misa still has to go.

In Ottawa, it looked inspired. Graf had a goal and an assist, and the assist was the better play, drawing three Senators into the left corner before finding Jacob Trouba alone in front for a tap-in and a 4-1 lead. Trouba finished with a goal and a helper of his own. Tyler Toffoli broke a 1-1 tie on the power play, part of a three-goal second period that turned a tight game into a rout. The Sharks even scored twice shorthanded, through Zack Ostapchuk and Ivar Stenberg into the empty net, the kind of edge that wins games when the lineup is stretched thin.

The Flaw Nearly Returned

The tense moments came where they always do. San Jose has blown a third-period lead four times in eight games, and Ottawa, down 4-1, took over the final 20 minutes. Jordan Spence cut it to 4-2 at 6:24, and the Senators kept coming, outshooting the Sharks 17-6 in the period and generating, by Travis Green’s own account, more chances than Ottawa had created in any game all year.

This time the door held, because Askarov slammed it. Where earlier third periods slipped away on soft goals and softer closeouts, this one ended with a goaltender standing on his head and two empty-netters sealing it. The short-handed theme only deepened as it went: Igor Chernyshov blocked a shot and did not return, and Ty Dellandrea took a painful block of his own. A team with every reason to fade found another gear instead.

None of it erases the questions. San Jose was outplayed on the shot clock, needed a heroic night in net to survive it, and still has no settled answer at second-line center. Warsofsky knew it, calling the night “a little bit of a mixed bag.” But he followed it with the part that counts: “Good teams find ways to win.” The Sharks had not won in Ottawa since 2021, had not won a game in regulation all season, and had not shown they could hold a lead when it got hard. On Thursday, short a key center and under siege for 40 minutes, they did all three. That is the kind of ugly, grinding win a playoff team keeps in its back pocket.