The San Jose Sharks lost to the Utah Mammoth and, most specifically, Nick Schmaltz on Friday night, by the score of 6-3. Schmaltz had a hat trick in the win and the Sharks fell to 0-2-2 to start the season, remaining the only team in the NHL without a win.
The Sharks didn’t get off to the best of starts last night and dug a hole early in the game. After that, it was a steep slope to climb just to get back to even. Once the Sharks pulled even, stupid mistakes killed all the momentum, and San Jose couldn’t pull itself back to even again.
If you look at the game flow chart in all situations courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, you can see just how quickly the Mammoth jumped on the Sharks.
It was a combination of issues. First, at five-on-five. I went back and looked at the play-by-play on ESPN and it looks like the Sharks didn’t have a shot on goal at even-strength until 11:44 into the first period. That means the team was not generating chances; it was all Utah. What’s more, because the Sharks were unable to create or generate offense, the team took three penalties in the first ten minutes of the game. In one instance, the penalty turned into a 5-on-3 for the Mammoth and you can guess how that turned out.
Ultimately, the slow start put the Sharks in a 2-0 hole and the team was lucky to leave the first period down by just two goals.
Stupid, stupid mistakes
With plenty of time left, the Sharks might have been able to battle back in the game, but this team is clearly disjointed early in the season. We’ll start off with the misplayed puck behind the net that gave the Mammoth back the lead in the second period.
Yaroslav Askarov went behind the net to play the puck and then just missed it. Sigh.
Askarov did a oopsie 🥴 pic.twitter.com/jfYKbIrhHT
— NHL News (@PuckReportNHL) October 18, 2025
But here’s the thing. The missplayed puck certainly took the wind out of the Sharks’ sails, but the loss can’t be hung entirely on Askarov. Because while Askarov allowed six goals last night, his expected goals against was four goals, meaning that he wasn’t getting a ton of help in front of him. Yes, he should have had that goal above, but most of the others, he wasn’t getting much support on.
For example, there was this goal in the third period, the Mammoth’s fourth goal, where even though the Sharks outnumber the Mammoth down low and in front of Askarov, no one is looking around for Schmaltz, who sneaks in and scores his third goal of the game.
At this point do we make Schmaltzy our profile picture?!??! pic.twitter.com/iFnIgPTRsM
— Utah Mammoth (@utahmammoth) October 18, 2025
The lack of awareness in front of the net is indicative of what’s been missing from the Sharks’ game for the past two games, and it’s something the team needs to find immediately.
There were other mistakes too. The Sharks took two penalties in the second period when the game was still in reach that set the team back. Dmitry Orlov didn’t need to hold the Utah player, especially because he initially had body position on him, leading to a power play for Utah. The Sharks also took a too many men penalty at the end of the second period once again killing the momentum.
Celebrini is doing it all
Finally, there’s a serious problem that needs to be addressed soon, and that’s that outside of Celebrini, so far, there is no game-changer in the group. Will Smith practically disappeared in last night’s game. Sam Dickinson, while looking better than that brutal game against the Carolina Hurricanes, clearly isn’t there yet. Michael Misa isn’t even playing. And Askarov, well, it’s been a rollercoaster ride so far.
So, we turn to the veterans, who are supposed to support the young players. Jeff Skinner has shown flashes of having an impact, but we’ve yet to see someone fit as the third on a line with Celebrini. For some reason, there’s this need to have Philipp Kurashev work out on Celebrini’s wing, but he can’t seem to keep up. Tyler Toffoli has been fine. We’re still waiting for things to click with William Eklund.
All of this became apparent when the Sharks ran a power play with Celebrini in the box, and it looked brutal. While Celebrini is great and having him is a privilege for Sharks fans, let’s be honest, one guy doesn’t win games, and if he’s all we have, the Sharks have a long, long way to go based on what we saw last night.
Highlight
While it’s not something that we harped on because it was going to happen eventually, our highlight from the game is Celebrini’s goal. Getting the first goal of the season off of Celebrini’s back is certainly something that we like to see. Hopefully, the deluge will begin now.
Macklin nets his first goal of the season 💪 pic.twitter.com/He23vIDaXJ
— Sharks on NBCS (@NBCSSharks) October 18, 2025
Scoring summary San Jose Sharks at Utah Mammoth Oct. 17, 2025
First Period
9:39 UTA Nick Schmaltz from Logan Cooley and Clayton Keller on the power play
13:31 UTA Nick Schmaltz from Clayton Keller
Second Period
5:23 SJS Tyler Toffoli from Dmitry Orlov and Will Smith on the power play
7:13 SJS Jeff Skinner from Macklin Celebrini and Vincent Desharnais
16:09 UTA Liam O’Brien from Brandon Tanev and Ian Cole
Third Period
0:54 UTA Nick Schmaltz from Clayton Keller
3:25 UTA Michael Carcone from Lawson Crouse
11:32 UTA Clayton Keller from Nick Schmaltz and Barrett Hayton
