SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Macklin Celebrini and the San Jose Sharks are entering a new phase after a tear down and rebuild led to seven straight seasons without a playoff berth.
With one of the game's top young stars leading the way, the anticipation for this season is high and Celebrini sees it almost everywhere he goes around the Bay Area from taking batting practice before a recent San Francisco Giants game to his day-to-day life.
“It’s pretty cool walking around, talking to people, people coming up to us on the street just saying how excited they are about the season,” Celebrini said Thursday on the first day of training camp. “We didn’t really get that the last couple of years, so it’s cool to see the excitement from the fans.”
It comes with good reason. The 20-year-old Celebrini is coming off one of the best seasons ever for a player so young, ranking fourth in the league in scoring, starring in the Olympics and then signing a five-year, $94 million extension this summer.
Celebrini is the leader of a young core in San Jose that fought its way into playoff contention last spring before falling four points short and now knows that making the postseason for the first time since 2019 is the standard this season.
He welcomes the scrutiny.
“You’d rather have expectations and want to win and kind of be fighting for it every night instead of looking to the next couple years,” Celebrini said. “That’s where the focus has shifted for our group this year and kind of taking the steps necessary to make the playoffs and have that experience.”
General manager Mike Grier reinforced the roster this summer, adding veteran defensemen Darnell Nurse, Jacob Trouba and Michael Kesserling, along with forward Mason Marchment to give a young roster some playoff-tested grit.
The group of youngsters is led by Celebrini, housemate Will Smith, forwards Michael Misa and Igor Chernyshov, and defenseman Sam Dickinson. San Jose also added three first-round picks in June, including Swedish winger Ivar Stenberg, who might be able to step right in and contribute on the top six.
“Obviously, playing against San Jose the last couple of years, you see the skill, you see the care, you see the team growing,” said Nurse, who made the Stanley Cup Finals with Edmonton in 2024 and '25. “Now it’s time to take a step. As a group, now we’re not going to surprise anyone. Every night we’re going to get everyone’s best. When teams are playing you like that, you have to bring your best each and every night.”
The keys for the Sharks to get over the hump this year begin with the start of the season after San Jose went winless in the first nine games two years ago and six games last year.
The Sharks also want to become stronger defensively after allowing the third most goals last season and improve a power-play unit that finished in the middle of the pack.
“There’s definitely a consistent theme with the guys that were brought in here,” said Trouba, who has played 85 career playoff games with Winnipeg, the New York Rangers and Anaheim. “We want to play a hard game, be hard to play against. I remember back when I started my career, it was not very fun to play against the Sharks. ... I think that’s the identity in the team that we want to get back to."
Trouba played against San Jose early in his career when San Jose was a consistent contender in the Western Conference and the Shark Tank was one of the toughest buildings for visiting teams.
That energy started to come back last season when the Sharks had the biggest percentage increase in home attendance thanks in part to 22 sellouts.
“When the Sharks are good, this building is one of the best to play in in the league,” said Marchment, who grew up going to games at the Shark Tank when his late father, Bryan, spent six seasons in San Jose. “I just hope that we can put out there what the fans want and we can get this building rocking again.”
The Sharks began a two-week sprint on Thursday to the season opener when they will host star-studded Florida on Oct. 1. They gave coach Ryan Warsofsky an extension on Thursday with the belief that he can lead them back to the playoffs.
“This time of year there’s always optimism,” Grier said. “It's just nice to see every year that we’ve kind of created a little bit more competition and the group’s improved each year. This is probably our most talented group but we still have to go out there and play the games.”
See AP’s full NHL coverage here
FILE - San Jose Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky looks on during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Buffalo Sabres on March 19, 2026, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Thien-An Truong, File)
FILE - San Jose Sharks center Macklin Celebrini (71) drives the puck as Vancouver Canucks left wing Liam Ohgren (92) defends during the third period of their NHL ice hockey game in San Jose, Calif., Saturday, April 11, 2026. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
HENRICO, Va. (AP) — In-person voting for this year’s midterm elections began Friday, ushering in the final six weeks for Americans to decide which party they trust to lead Congress through a cost-of-living crisis, a prolonged war in Iran and other pressing issues.
Election administrators say they are prepared and confident the vote will be accurate and secure. Nevertheless, President Donald Trump has continued with efforts to denigrate certain voting methods and reshape how elections are run, through court challenges, an expansive federal hunt for noncitizen voters and a pressure campaign to force election officials to share sensitive voter data.
Friday marked the start of early voting in Virginia. Voters in a handful of other states, including Idaho, Minnesota and South Dakota, can cast absentee ballots in person, typically at a local election office or voting center. More expansive early voting is scheduled to begin in those and other states in the coming weeks.
At a voting location in Fairfax, Virginia, 18-year-old college student Sanya Singhal was among the first to vote early in person Friday morning, arriving well before the site opened to get in line.
“Why not just have a little fun in life, you know, try to be the first early voter?” she said. “I really want to participate in my democracy.”
The Nov. 3 election includes votes for governor and state legislature in most states and will determine whether Republicans maintain control of the U.S. House and Senate. If Democrats retake Congress, it will alter the trajectory of the final two years of Trump’s term, most likely leading to investigations and other oversight efforts.
The start of early voting comes at a time of deep angst among many Americans about issues including rising gas and grocery prices, the war in Iran, the looming risks of artificial intelligence and Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement campaign.
It also follows an unprecedented spate of mid-decade redistricting for the U.S. House that began when Trump urged the Republican-controlled legislature in Texas to redraw its congressional map to help the party. California and other states followed.
The changes affect millions of people: Research shows 1 in 10 Americans this fall is a resident of a different congressional district than in 2024.
Those partisan efforts are expected to continue before the 2028 elections after a landmark ruling this year from the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the federal Voting Rights Act’s protections against racially discriminatory redistricting.
As the start of early voting approached, Trump was focused on efforts to assert federal control over election administration, even as the Constitution bestows the power to run elections on the states and, in some cases, Congress. The nation's highest court rejected Trump's bid to restrict mail ballots this week, but several of his administration's other efforts to influence the voting process and mine state voter lists for illegitimate voters continue.
Virginia's attorney general said Thursday that Trump's administration may have violated several of the state's laws after a whistleblower accused federal employees of misrepresenting themselves on voter lookup tools to hunt for noncitizen voters. In a letter, Attorney General Jay Jones demanded that the Department of Homeland Security confirm in writing whether it had directed anyone to access Virginia voters’ information without first obtaining permission from those voters.
Trump for years has raised the specter of widespread noncitizen voting in U.S. elections, and this year is no exception. But despite his administration's insistence that hundreds of thousands of people are illegally on voting rolls across the country, research continues to show noncitizen voting is exceptionally rare.
David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the Republican president continues “his disinformation campaign and his attack on election officials.” But he said he thinks despite that and other challenges, “ultimately the process will hold as it has in past years.”
Voting rights advocates have encouraged voters this year to cast mail ballots early, in part because of concerns about recent changes in U.S. Postal Service operations that could delay the application of postmarks to ballots.
“Voting early, whether in person or by mail, is good for all of our communities because it gives voters options, eases lines on Election Day and can even mean faster results,” said Hannah Fried, co-founder and CEO of the voting rights group All Voting Is Local.
In a news briefing Thursday, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon urged people not to be swayed by stories they might have seen or read that cast doubt on election operations. They would be able to vote “just like they always have,” he said.
“I just want to reaffirm that Minnesota’s elections are fundamentally free, fair, accurate, honest and secure,” he said.
Swenson reported from New York and Raza reported from Sioux Falls, S.D. Associated Press writer Mike Catalini in Philadelphia and AP video journalist Nathan Ellgren in Fairfax, Va., contributed to this report.
Peggy Jacobs of Chesterfield, N.H., leaves the voting booth in Chesterfield during the New Hampshire State Primaries on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (Kristopher Radder/The Brattleboro Reformer via AP)
A sign directs voters to an entrance for City Hall during early voting for the Rhode Island primary election, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
