No San Jose Skater Started As Often In The Offensive Zone Last Season As Mason Marchment Did In Columbus
The Sharks 25, No. 13. San Jose gave a 31-year-old winger five years and $33,750,000 on the back of the best offensive season of his career. That season was built on a deployment nobody on this roster received.
Take the twenty-nine skaters who appear on San Jose's 2025-26 advanced table. Sort them by the share of their shifts that began with a faceoff in the offensive zone, highest first. Read the top of the list.
The top is Will Smith at 62.1 percent across 69 games, alone up there. Macklin Celebrini is next at 58.7 over all 82. Nobody on that list, at any number of games played, reached 69 percent.
Mason Marchment was at 69.1 percent last season. Across his 39 games in Columbus, after the trade out of Seattle, he was at 74.7.
San Jose signed him on July 1 for five years and $33,750,000, a cap hit of $6,750,000, with a full no-trade clause covering the first two seasons. That is more total money than San Jose gave any other free agent this summer, $33,750,000 against the $33,000,000 that went to Jacob Trouba the same day, though Trouba's four-year term carries the higher annual hit. Dom Luszczyszyn graded it a B-plus. Max Miller at Sharks Hockey Digest graded it a B-plus. The analytics and the beat almost never land on the same letter, and on this one they did.
What he did last year#
Marchment turned 31 in June. He put up 45 points in 68 games between the Kraken and the Blue Jackets, 19 goals and 26 assists, and the two halves do not look like the same player.
| 2025-26 | Games | Goals | Points | Shooting | Off. zone starts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle | 29 | 4 | 13 | 8.7 | 59.3 |
| Columbus | 39 | 15 | 32 | 20.5 | 74.7 |
| Combined | 68 | 19 | 45 | 16.0 | 69.1 |
Columbus gave him the softest shifts of his career and he scored like it. That is not a knock. Getting the good minutes is a skill, and holding them is a harder one. His even-strength shot-attempt share sat 6.7 percentage points above his teammates' in Columbus, the best relative mark he has posted anywhere.
The number underneath the raise#
He also got more ice than he has ever had. Marchment averaged 17:22 a night last season, against a previous career best of 15:42 in 2022-23 and a career rate of 15:21 across 370 games.
Most of that raise came at even strength, where he went from 13:23 a night in 2024-25 to 15:03. His power-play time went from 1:57 to 2:18, and in Columbus alone to 2:41. His short-handed time went from essentially nothing to essentially nothing: 24 seconds across all 62 games in 2024-25, a minute and a half across 68 games last season. He has never killed penalties and San Jose did not sign him to start.
The offensive zone share moved with the minutes. At even strength his career line reads 49.2, 50.5, 53.8, 52.9, 51.6, and then 62.8 last season. Sorted, 62.8 is his high by nine full points over anything he had done before.
Best case#
Professor Hockey projected him at 60 points on July 29, the highest of the four forwards San Jose added. That number is reachable and it does not require the Columbus version. Marchment's own 82-game rate across seven seasons is 21 goals and 52 points, and he has cleared 47 points three times.
The case for 60 runs through the power play. Two published opening-night projections put him on the first unit: Sheng Peng at San Jose Hockey Now on August 7, and Professor Hockey on August 28, whose unit is Celebrini, Luca Cagnoni at the point, Smith, Alexander Wennberg at the net front and Marchment. Neither list is a lineup card, and camp has not opened.
Daily Faceoff's July 4 lines gave him a top-six left wing job alongside Michael Misa and Collin Graf. At six foot five he is the size the club did not otherwise have up front.
Worst case#
The deployment does not travel. Somebody on this team has to start shifts in the defensive zone, and last season San Jose did not have a single skater living where Marchment lived. If his share settles back near the 52 percent he ran in Dallas, the shifts get harder and the 20.5 percent shooting rate has nothing holding it up. His career mark is 13.1 percent on 725 shots. Even his combined 16.0 last season sits three points above it.
The second half of the worst case is availability, and it is the older worry. He has played seven NHL seasons and has never played 82 games. His high is 81, in 2023-24. Miller flagged it at the signing: six full seasons, time missed in five of them. He was born on June 18, 1995, so a five-year term that begins at 31 ends in a season he turns 36 in.
What to watch in October#
Even-strength time on ice, in the first two weeks, and it is in every box score.
Over 15 minutes a night says the staff kept him in the role Columbus invented for him and the 60 is live. Down near 13 and a half, which is what Dallas gave him for three years, says he is a second-line winger on a team with a lot of second-line wingers, and his own 82-game rate is the number to forecast from rather than anybody's 60.
Power-play time is the second reading and it is on the same sheet. Above two minutes a night and the first unit Peng and Professor Hockey drew is the real one. Under a minute and a half and he is on the second.
The zone starts settle it properly, and they are published nightly. Anything in the high sixties means the club bought the Columbus model outright.
The stakes#
San Jose has not reached the playoffs in seven seasons. The last berth was 2018-19, and last spring's 39-35-8, fifth in the Pacific, was the best year of the rebuild.
Marchment told Mike Zeisberger of NHL.com on August 27 that reaching the postseason is "the bare minimum for us." He also has a reason to have said yes that has nothing to do with the deployment: his late father Bryan played for the Sharks from 1998 to 2003 and was scouting for the club when he died in 2022.
The contract will be on this roster until 2031. Celebrini and Smith need scoring wingers now, while both are cheap, and Marchment is the one the club paid for. Whether he was a 45-point winger last season or a 74.7-percent-of-shifts winger who scored 45 points is the question San Jose just bought five years of, and the answer starts showing up in box scores when the season opens on October 1.
Yesterday: Of Alexander Wennberg's twenty and a half minutes a night, five and a half came on special teams.
Sources: Hockey Reference (Marchment's career, advanced and per-strength tables; San Jose's 2025-26 advanced skater table). Mike Zeisberger, NHL.com, August 27, for the quote, the contract and Bryan Marchment. Max Miller at Sharks Hockey Digest and Dom Luszczyszyn at The Athletic, July 1 and 2, for the grades and the durability note. Professor Hockey, July 29 for the point projection and August 28 for the power-play units; Sheng Peng at San Jose Hockey Now, August 7, for his. Daily Faceoff's July 4 lines. PuckPedia for the contract terms.
