Grab Some Pine Pull up a bench. Bay Area sports, Michigan, and a model or two.
October 16, 2026
Post-game

Both Nashville goals followed faceoffs Wennberg lost

Alexander Wennberg went 0 of 9 against Ryan O'Reilly and Steven Stamkos as San Jose lost its late lead and won in a shootout.

DC
Dom CahillOct 16, 20264 min read
Every call on this site goes on a public ledger and gets graded. The misses stay up.
Alexander Wennberg skates with the puck in San Jose's teal home sweater.

Both Nashville goals followed faceoff wins over Alexander Wennberg, and San Jose's lead disappeared one second from its first regulation win. The Sharks won 3-2 in Thursday's shootout after leading for 54:29 of regulation's 60:00.

Even at five#

San Jose won the regulation five-on-five scoring 2-0 while MoneyPuck's expected goals were almost level, 1.78 for the Sharks and 1.80 for Nashville over 44:46. Mason Marchment and Will Smith supplied the goals; Nashville's answers required a power play and an extra attacker. The third period had already tilted toward Nashville at five-on-five, with San Jose trailing 0.37 to 0.68 in expected goals and 13 to 20 in attempts.

The matchups#

At 8:59 of the third, Stamkos beat Wennberg on an offensive-zone power-play draw. Jonathan Marchessault put a shot on goal at 9:02; O'Reilly scored at 9:05, six seconds after the faceoff. At 19:42, O'Reilly beat Wennberg on a neutral-zone draw with Nashville playing six-on-five. Matthew Wood's shot reached the net at 19:52, Roman Josi's attempt was blocked at 19:56, and Stamkos tied it at 19:59, 17 seconds after the draw.

Wennberg finished 0 of 9 against O'Reilly and Stamkos, and 9 of 14 against everyone else, including overtime. In his Oct. 15 YouTube review, Professor Hockey wanted Zack Ostapchuk taking the late draw: "I feel as though you should go with the hot hand in that spot." The NHL play-by-play corrects the count behind that criticism: the 19:42 draw was Wennberg's fifth against O'Reilly, leaving him 0 for 4 beforehand. Ostapchuk won 7 of 12 overall and 4 of 6 in the third, without taking a draw against O'Reilly.

Professor Hockey also said Wennberg was otherwise good defensively. His line with Tyler Toffoli and Marchment produced Marchment's goal and a 0.52-to-0.33 expected-goals edge in 9:54 together at five-on-five.

The arguments against#

Three arguments against blaming the draw, and the first one is real.

  1. Nashville still needed three six-on-five attempts in the 17 seconds after the draw, ending with Stamkos scoring from 34 feet.
  2. Ostapchuk never faced O'Reilly at the dot, so his 7 wins in 12 draws came against other centers.
  3. Kiefer Sherwood missed the empty net from 78 feet at 19:32 with a one-goal lead, and San Jose's power play went 0 for 3 with 0.76 expected goals over 6:00 at five-on-four.

The goalies#

San Jose's Alex Nedeljkovic stopped 32 of 34 shots, including all 20 at five-on-five in regulation, then all three Nashville shootout attempts. MoneyPuck assigned 2.69 expected goals to the shots on goal he faced through overtime; Nashville's Juuse Saros saved 30 of 32 against 2.23 expected goals on shots on goal.

The blue line#

Michael Kesselring's regulation five-on-five minutes brought a 25-to-16 attempts edge and 1.12-to-0.57 expected goals in 14:16; Nolan Allan had 0.84 to 0.27 in 11:32 and was on for both Sharks goals. Darnell Nurse did not dress, and Professor Hockey would sit Dmitry Orlov when Nurse returns. Orlov's regulation five-on-five expected goals were 0.53 for and 0.99 against in 15:28.

The selections#

Dom Cahill's stars

  1. Alex Nedeljkovic, San Jose: 32 saves on 34 shots and all three shootout attempts stopped.
  2. Michael Kesselring, San Jose: a 1.12-to-0.57 five-on-five expected-goals edge in 14:16, plus the assist on Smith's goal.
  3. Nolan Allan, San Jose: both Sharks goals on his five-on-five shifts, with 15:28 total ice time, lowest among San Jose's six defensemen.

The NHL's stars

  1. Juuse Saros, Nashville: 30 saves on 32 shots.
  2. Steven Stamkos, Nashville: the six-on-five tying goal at 19:59 of the third.
  3. Macklin Celebrini, San Jose: the winning shootout goal.

No name is shared between them, and Celebrini's official star came on a shootout goal with zero points in regulation or overtime.

The season sample#

San Jose is 4-3-0, with all four wins after regulation and zero regulation wins through seven games. Thursday's near-even five-on-five expected goals enter a season total still at 39.0 percent in MoneyPuck's team file across seven games, against 47.6 percent across 82 games last season.

Sources: NHL gamecenter landing, boxscore, play-by-play and right rail; NHL shift charts; NHL schedule; MoneyPuck game data and team season files; Professor Hockey's game review (YouTube, Oct. 15).

Filed under Sharks

More on Alexander Wennberg

His page →
San Jose changed its first line on Monday, and the other three with it
Lines

San Jose changed its first line on Monday, and the other three with it

San Jose practiced on October 12 with four new forward lines: Chernyshov-Celebrini-Smith, Stenberg-Misa-Sherwood, Marchment-Wennberg-Toffoli and Ostapchuk between Graf and either Dellandrea or Gaudette, with Barclay Goodrow off the ice with an illness and questionable for Tuesday's game against Boston. The defense pairs did not change. Ivar Stenberg, 19, replaced Chernyshov on the first power-play unit; San Jose is 2 for 13 on the power play and 0 for 7 over its last three games. Warsofsky said the club is not playing in the offensive zone enough to create offense. At five-on-five San Jose has scored 7 goals and allowed 13 through five games, with 34.3 percent of MoneyPuck's expected goals, 31st of 32 clubs; last season's full-year share was 47.6 percent. Boston, 4-2-0, has allowed 7 five-on-five goals in six games.

Grant LombardOct 13, 20264 min read
Edmonton got one shot when McDavid met Wennberg's line, and seven when he didn't
Post-game

Edmonton got one shot when McDavid met Wennberg's line, and seven when he didn't

Edmonton beat San Jose 3-1 in regulation, with McDavid's five-on-five damage concentrated in his minutes away from Wennberg.

Dom CahillOct 11, 20264 min read
Wennberg and Trouba get the other team's top line at SAP Center
Analysis

Wennberg and Trouba get the other team's top line at SAP Center

Wennberg's line drew the heavier top-line matchup at home, while Celebrini's line took more defensive-zone faceoffs; practice this week kept Allan and Trouba together and moved Stenberg's line.

Dom CahillOct 8, 20265 min read

On the record

Called Shots →
OpenAug 28, 2026

Barclay Goodrow averages less than 1:55 of shorthanded ice time per game across San Jose's first 20 games of 2026-27, down from 1:55 across all 82 games in 2025-26.

The baseline is exactly 1:55 a night across 82 games, from Hockey Reference's San Jose 2025-26 time-on-ice table. San Jose conceded 9.9 goals per sixty with him on the ice shorthanded, the highest rate of the five forwards under contract for 2026-27 who averaged at least a minute a game killing penalties (Ostapchuk 9.7, Wennberg 8.7, Dellandrea 8.4, Graf 5.4), with no shorthanded goals or assists of his own. The kill finished 76.42 percent, 26th of 32, against a league average of 78.87. This is a call about DEPLOYMENT, not about the player: the claim is that the coaching staff moves the minutes, not that Goodrow declines further. For the call: the club's own 2026-27 scorecard sets a success condition of a top-20 kill with the Goodrow and Wennberg tier reduced; DailyFaceoff's July 4 projected lines have him as an extra rather than in the twelve; and Professor Hockey said on August 12 it would be coaching malpractice if he played all 84 games. Against it: he dressed all 82 last season, he is an alternate captain in a contract year, Ryan Warsofsky is himself in the final year of his deal and veterans are what coaches reach for in October, and an injury to Graf or Wennberg hands those minutes straight back to him.

Latest on the Sharks

The whole beat →
San Jose has held its own for three games. One line has not.
Weekly review

San Jose has held its own for three games. One line has not.

San Jose's improved five-on-five play has left the Stenberg-Misa-Sherwood combination behind as the road trip reaches its first back-to-back.

Dom CahillOct 18, 20265 min read
San Jose has led by two in the third four times and won none in regulation
Post-game

San Jose has led by two in the third four times and won none in regulation

San Jose's repeated third-period trouble now accompanies better five-on-five play, with the Celebrini line driving the improvement at Detroit.

Dom CahillOct 18, 20264 min read
Trouba is a mile an hour slower than a year ago. His shot is not.
Player deep dive

Trouba is a mile an hour slower than a year ago. His shot is not.

Jacob Trouba has not gone over 20 mph in eight games for San Jose, after doing it at least twice in his first eight games for Anaheim last season. His shot has not slowed, and no Sharks defenseman plays more.

Dom CahillOct 18, 20265 min read

Earlier on the Sharks

Re-judging the Eklund trade: the data says they sold a rising player at the bottom of his luck
Sharks Player Note

Re-judging the Eklund trade: the data says they sold a rising player at the bottom of his luck

How good was Eklund, really, and what that does to the trade grade

Grab Some PineJun 25, 20265 min read
The forecast, redone: Stenberg is an NHL player, and it changes the picture
Sharks Forecast, v2

The forecast, redone: Stenberg is an NHL player, and it changes the picture

Redone, with Stenberg in the lineup where he belongs

Grab Some PineJun 24, 20267 min read
Igor Chernyshov and the only real argument in the forward group
Sharks film room

Igor Chernyshov and the only real argument in the forward group

Igor Chernyshov and the only real argument in the forward group

Grab Some PineJun 9, 20264 min read