Stenberg scored three, and Celebrini's line had the puck

Ivar Stenberg and Michael Misa finished with four points apiece, Igor Chernyshov with three, and Macklin Celebrini with a five-on-five attempt count of 16-2. The points put the kids on the NHL's three-star list Thursday against Anaheim. The attempts describe how thoroughly Celebrini's line kept the puck in its first exhibition, despite playing the least. With Celebrini on the ice, San Jose took 16 of 18 five-on-five attempts.

The first line#

Sort San Jose's 18 skaters by five-on-five minutes, smallest first, and you get Celebrini at 8:06, Mason Marchment at 9:12 and Will Smith at 9:43. Those workloads, counted from the NHL's shift charts, put the entire line at the bottom. All were making their preseason debuts; San Jose's on-ice attempts were 16-2 with Celebrini, 15-3 with Marchment and 17-3 with Smith, counting only attempts strictly inside a player's shift and excluding change seconds.

These are overlapping player counts, with Celebrini sharing 7:42 with Smith and 7:01 with Marchment at five-on-five. Marchment's second goal came from Smith and Celebrini, the primary and secondary assists respectively.

Professor Hockey called the line "outstanding" despite missed passes in his Sept. 24 review. He interpreted Celebrini's short night as declining to "risk a potential injury" with that lead; his estimate of the third-period workload agrees with the shift chart's two shifts. The with-and-without split gives the short night substance beyond the assist. Away from Celebrini, San Jose took 33 of 59 five-on-five attempts.

The goals#

San Jose won 10-0 at SAP Center, scoring eight at five-on-five and two on the power play. All ten goals came from 25 feet or closer, measured from the recorded coordinates. Stenberg scored twice at five-on-five and once on the power play; Misa had a goal and three assists, Chernyshov two goals and an assist.

Anaheim's Ville Husso was in net for the first six goals and saved 13 of 19 shots; Laurent Brossoit, in for the last four, saved 4 of 8. Across all situations, San Jose scored on 10 of 27 shots, or 37.0%.

Stenberg's company#

Stenberg and Misa shared 9:37 at five-on-five and scored three five-on-five goals between them. The same attempt count that flatters Celebrini's line describes a closer contest during their shifts.

Stenberg's five-on-five count was 11-7, while Kiefer Sherwood's was 9-10. Misa collected four points across all situations while San Jose took 11 of 21 five-on-five attempts with him on the ice.

Special teams#

San Jose went 2 for 5 on the power play; Anaheim went 0 for 4 across 8:00, generating 11 attempts and seven shots. Smith killed penalties for 1:45, and Darnell Nurse took two of San Jose's four minors. At the other end, Alex Nedeljkovic stopped all 21 Anaheim shots, seven of them while San Jose was shorthanded.

The arguments against#

1. The opponent changes the weight of every count. Anaheim's 18 skaters had 146 NHL games in 2025-26 against San Jose's 689. Two Ducks had played at least 41, against nine Sharks; nine Ducks had no career NHL game. Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now described an AHL-caliber lineup, and Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News described mainly AHL players on Sept. 24.
2. Most of Celebrini's edge came in the first period, when his five-on-five count was 11-1 and the whole team's was 27-6, so every line was tilting the ice. Only the second period separates him from the rest: 5-1 with him, 7-13 without.
3. The samples are small. One exhibition gave Celebrini 18 on-ice five-on-five attempts and Smith 20.
4. No expected-goals model covers this exhibition. The location evidence is distance alone, without a model's accounting for chance quality. San Jose's median was 24.7 feet across 37 unblocked five-on-five attempts; Anaheim's was 49.1 feet across 20.

Three stars, twice#

The NHL chose Stenberg, Misa and Chernyshov, all Sharks, in that order. My list agrees on one of three, with Stenberg first.

1. Stenberg. Three goals and an assist, including two five-on-five goals and a power-play goal, with an 11-7 five-on-five attempt count.
2. Smith. Four shots tied the team lead; he added Marchment's primary assist and 1:45 killing penalties, alongside 17-3 in five-on-five attempts over 9:43.
3. Celebrini. A 16-2 five-on-five attempt count in 8:06, the smallest such workload among San Jose's 18 skaters, plus Marchment's secondary assist and 6 of 10 faceoffs.

Misa and Chernyshov's points earned the league's recognition; my list gives more weight to the territorial imbalance. With Misa, San Jose took 11 of 21 five-on-five attempts; with Chernyshov, nine of 17.

Sources: NHL gamecenter landing, boxscore, play-by-play and shift charts; NHL player records; Professor Hockey, "San Jose Sharks 26-27 Preseason Review: Game 3," YouTube, Sept. 24, 2026; Sheng Peng, San Jose Hockey Now, Sept. 24, 2026; Curtis Pashelka, The Mercury News, Sept. 24, 2026.