The San Jose Sharks began this season with another long losing streak, but since then really turned it around and have spent considerable time now occupying a wild card position in the standings. Despite this, and given that nearly everyone behind them in the standings has been only a few points back, at most, I wasn’t entertaining much thought of the team actually making the playoffs. I thought the team wasn’t good enough to hold up over the full season, and also that they would likely fall off at the end of the year. Macklin Celebrini was tired at the end of last season, and this year’s schedule is more condensed because of the Olympics, and it’s been clear for a while that he wasn’t getting a break during those Olympics.

However, when Will Smith was injured in Pittsburgh, that gave the team a reason to call up a player who could produce offensively, Igor Chernyshov. Chernyshov was having a very nice season for the AHL Barracuda, but now it looks like he was also holding something back while he worked on his game, or he just needed NHL players, and Celebrini in particular, to really take off.

Chernyshov has been one of my guys in the team’s pipeline. I was ecstatic they could get him in the draft, and then even more pleased that he came over right away to North America to get started (shoulder injury that delayed his start with Saginaw last year notwithstanding).

Having said that, I have not been yearning for his call-up because I expected he was ready to perform like he has. I thought his curve would be flatter. That maybe he comes up the last quarter of this season to get some experience to hopefully become a useful but not spectacular even yet player next season.

But now this is happening and now Macklin Celebrini has what he needs to turn the Sharks into a contender a lot faster than people have been expecting. Rebuilds don’t take long when you have some supporting cast around a player like Celebrini. The Penguins were a very good team in Sidney Crosby’s second season, when Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal joined up. It didn’t require 3-4 years for those guys to get experience before the team took major steps forward, it happened right away. The Penguins lost in the Stanley Cup Finals in Crosby’s third season and won it the next.

It helped the Penguins that Malkin and Staal were centers, while Chernyshov and Will Smith are wingers (yes I think Smith is purely an NHL winger). But the Sharks have those two, and while he is being unnecessarily babied this year, Michael Misa to fill another center position with an elite player. Yaroslav Askarov also fits in nicely as a Marc-Andre Fleury comp.

With Chernyshov in the lineup and a healthy Smith back, I think the Sharks are now more likely than not to make the playoffs this season.

Next season could get crazy. A lot of that depends on Mike Grier, who I have complete confidence in. I think he’s been incredible in his role so far, and built a serious front office around him as well. But he’s pretty deliberate, and I wonder if he will move the plan forward for the team this offseason with some inspired additions, rather than the expert bin-shopping he did last offseason. The defense obviously needs some boosting. The assets are there to acquire a real nice player or two to get this thing into contention mode right away, and not have to wait for guys in the system to develop. Those are now chips to get good tomorrow.