Preview/Lines #29: Warsofsky Shares Next Step for Celebrini, Smith

TAMPA, Fla. — The San Jose Sharks feel like they can beat anybody right now.

With that in mind, for head coach Ryan Warsofsky, it’s not time to slack off, but to raise expectations for everybody, especially his young guns.

Tampa Lightning color commentator Brian Engblom, who’s seen his share of young superstars, asked this question: “You’ve allowed your young star players to just go out and play. Do you have sort of a mental time frame in your mind where we’re gonna maybe clamp down on some things? Maybe you let young star players do what they do, can’t overload them too much early on.”

Warsofsky responded, “We’re at that point. Now that we’re seeing us win hockey games, we now have to start putting in habits of winning, foundational habits of this is what it takes to win.

“Macklin, you can’t dangle through a 1-3-1 in the third period when we’re up 2-1 with four minutes left.

“You have to realize that. And he’s been really good, and he’s understood that.

“Same thing as Will, we’re 4-on-4. We can’t turn over two pucks 4-on-4 and give these teams momentum swings.”

Here’s a good time to mention: It’s important that both Celebrini and Smith have established that some of the things that they were doing in college, they work in the NHL. They earned that all-important confidence in the best league in the world.

But now, it’s time to build on that.

“The biggest thing is putting those foundational habits of what winning looks like to these individuals,” Warsofsky said. “We got to continue to preach it and harp it and understand it, so we’re not playing catch up three, four years from now, when we’re really taking off here.”

San Jose Sharks (10-13-5)

Vitek Vanecek will start and Jack Thompson will draw in for Henry Thrun.

Was Nic Dowd’s too-easy goal on Wednesday, Thrun on the ice, one of the reasons why?

Nic Dowd ties it up for #ALLCAPS
1-1 pic.twitter.com/l5Z5uYVrrS

— JD Young (@MyFryHole) December 4, 2024

Nope, Warsofsky stressed, “It wasn’t his fault on that faceoff, we lost our center coverage, and then [Toffoli] gets too high on that. Just some execution reads that he needs to do a little bit better, with more consistency. Sometimes for a young defenseman, a little bit of a reset for him would be nice.”

What is Warsofsky expecting from right-hander Thompson, who’s been out for the last five games?

“It’s unfortunate he’s going to play on his offside because as a young defenseman, it’s extremely difficult,” the bench boss said. “But I think the breakout reads, line rushes against reads, defending with good detail, the three things that we’ve really talked to him the most about.”

It’s a revenge game for the Tampa Bay Lightning 2020 third-round pick, acquired last Trade Deadline for Anthony Duclair.

These are how lines looked this morning:

Eklund-Celebrini-Zetterlund
Kunin-Wennberg-Toffoli
Kostin-Granlund-W. Smith
Grundstrom-Sturm-Dellandrea

Walman-Ceci
Ferraro-Liljegren
Thompson-Rutta

Vanecek

Tampa Bay Lightning (12-9-2)

Jon Cooper confirms Paul will play tonight but both Kucherov and Chaffee will be out with injuries. He is hopeful those two players will be available for the upcoming road trip.

— Gabby Shirley (@Gabby_Shirley_) December 5, 2024

Where To Watch

Puck drop between the San Jose Sharks and Tampa Bay Lightning is 4 PM PT at Amalie Arena. Watch it live on NBC Sports California. Listen to it on the Sharks Audio Network.