The San Jose Sharks didn’t bring the team’s best game to this one, but the team did what it needed to do to win in the end. The Sharks beat the visiting New York Rangers by a final score of 3-1, to move into second place in the Western Conference wild card race.
These regulation wins are important, since all the teams in the wild card race are so closely bunched together. Regulation wins get a heavier weight than wins overall, which means every single regulation win the Sharks can get will make a difference in this tightly contested race. And the players are watching the standings.
“Every game is important. We don’t want to be at the end of the year and be like, ‘Oh, we missed the spot because of the three points.’ That we could try even more,” said Pavol Regenda, who scored the game-winning goal in last night’s game. “So, yeah, it’s really important. I feel like every guy is on a mission to get the playoff spot. That’s the goal for our season, because we want to get there. We got to win a lot of games. So everybody joined up.”
While the power play wasn’t the team’s best weapon the past few games, last night, it was the great equalizer for the Sharks. Looking at Natural Stat Trick’s Gameflow chart, you can see the immense difference between 5v5 play:
And the play in all situations:
At 5v5, the Rangers held the edge in puck possession, but the power play served as the equalizer for the Sharks in this game, keeping the team in it early and helping the Sharks get the lead. When the Rangers scored late in the first period the damage was already done. After that, it was up to Alex Nedeljkovic to keep the Sharks in the game.
Nedeljkovic stopped 28 of the 29 shots he faced and finished the night with a 2.32 goals saved above expected. He was the reason the Sharks were able to take the win in regulation instead of having to finish things off in overtime.
For those of you wondering which players had the best night, the second line of Alex Wennberg, Tyler Toffoli and Pavol Regenda were the most effective. Looking at Hockey Stat Cards’ GameScore Impact Card, Toffoli was the Shark’s most effective player last night with Regenda close behind.
NHL GameScore Impact Card for San Jose Sharks on 2026-01-23: pic.twitter.com/CKoYasyKz6
— HockeyStatCards (@hockeystatcards) January 24, 2026
Another stat to keep an eye on and it might have an effect as more players get healthy was ice time. Ryan Reaves was in the lineup, but he played just 3:55 the entire game. Barclay Goodrow played the second least with 7:31 of ice time. With the addition of Kiefer Sherwood, who not only scores but also kills penalties, Goodrow might become redundant in this Sharks lineup, especially if Sherwood re-signs longer term.
Highlight
The game didn’t even finish, but it wasn’t hard to decide which play to give the highlight of the night to because it was such an all around good play, I just wish they would show more of it.
MACKLIN AGAIN 🚨 pic.twitter.com/DxAyD6K0Za
— Sharks on NBCS (@NBCSSharks) January 24, 2026
If you were able to rewind this about five seconds, you would see Collin Graf actually knock the puck down in the zone to take the puck away from the Rangers’ player. He creates the turnover that leads to the possession. After that, he controls the puck in the zone until Will Smith and Macklin Celebrini can join him.
When they arrive, Graf eludes the Rangers just long enough to use the boards to pass the puck to Smith. Smith makes no mistake in finding Celebrini, who finishes the play. While Celebrini gets the goal and Smith gets the primary assist, the entire play happens because of Graf’s work.
We spend a lot of time talking about Smith and Celebrini, but General Manager Mike Grier’s work to get Graf to join the Sharks is an absolute steal.
Scoring summary New York Rangers at San Jose Sharks Jan. 23, 2026
First period
1:09 SJS Macklin Celebrini from Tyler Toffoli and Will Smith on the power play
3:08 SJS Pavol Regenda from Michael Misa and Collin Graf on the power play
7:37 SJS Macklin Celebrini from Will Smith and Collin Graf
12:50 NYR Sam Carrick from Taylor Raddysh and Anton Blidh
Second period
No scoring
Third period
No scoring
