Last season, the San Jose Sharks had a finalist for the Calder Trophy, Macklin Celebrini, and another finished sixth in voting, Will Smith. Heading into the 2025-26 season, the Sharks are essentially guaranteed to have one candidate for the Calder, but there’s a chance they could have as many as three players with a legitimate shot of winning the Award at the end of the season.
First, a quick reminder of the NHL’s definition of a rookie. Per the NHL’s Hockey Operations Guidelines, “To be considered a rookie, a player must not have played in more than 25 NHL games in any preceding seasons, nor in six or more NHL games in each of any two preceding seasons.”
Due to those rules, players like Shakir Mukhamadullin and Collin Graf are no longer considered rookies, but players like Yegor Afanasyev or Cam Lund will be rookies this coming season. Now, with that said, let’s look at the three potential Sharks rookies who could compete for the Calder Trophy this coming season.
Yaroslav Askarov will see quite a bit of game time for the Sharks as he’s currently projected to be the team’s starting netminder to start the season. He has only played a total of 16 NHL games over his career, 13 of which came during the 2024-25 season, allowing him to maintain his rookie status.
Askarov has been a phenomenal goaltender at the American Hockey League level, and although his numbers from last season weren’t great, he played much better than statistics show. He had some rough moments, but many project him as one of the best goaltending prospects in the NHL, and it’s time for him to show he can last at that high of a level.
For Askarov, there’s an easy comparison for how he needs to perform in order to finish as a finalist for the Calder. If he can play at a level similar to Dustin Wolf, who finished second in voting for the trophy last season, then he’ll likely find himself in a similar position come the end of the season. That will certainly be easier said than done, but Askarov definitely has the talent to do so.
Next, the Sharks’ second overall selection in the 2025 NHL Draft, Michael Misa, could make a massive impact if he’s able to make the roster out of training camp. It’s far from guaranteed that the 18-year-old captain of the Saginaw Spirit will make the jump to the professional game next season, and there’s even a chance he joins his brother, Luke Misa, in the NCAA come this fall. If he does impress enough at training camp to earn a spot though, there’s a very high chance that he contributes at a high level for the Sharks. In my roster projection, I had Misa starting on the third line, but if he were to play well enough, he could certainly play his way into the top-six within a couple of months under head coach Ryan Warsofsky.
Lastly, the Sharks will also have Sam Dickinson looking to make their opening night roster. The 19-year-old defenseman dominated the Ontario Hockey League last season, but making the jump to the NHL at such a young age is a difficult task for any blue-liner, except for potentially a generational talent.
The reigning Calder winner, Lane Hutson, is a defenseman himself; however, he is a little bit older than Dickinson at 21 years of age. While it may seem like a minute difference, two years of development for defensemen is quite a big difference.
If Dickinson does make the NHL, he seems like the biggest long-shot of the three to find himself in contention for the Calder despite his obvious talent. Similar to Will Smith last season, Dickinson seems like the type of player who will have a bit of an extreme adjustment to the NHL and as a result, he may experience a rough start to the season before truly finding his game a few months into the season.
The Sharks have a great chance that one of their top prospects will walk away with the Calder Trophy at the end of the 2025-26 season, considering the number of players on their roster who could legitimately be in the conversation. With that being said, there’s quite a bit of competition with 2025 first-overall pick Matthew Schaefer, Ivan Demidov of the Montreal Canadiens, and Ryan Leonard of the Washington Capitals all being in the running as well.
For the second season in a row, the Calder Trophy race will undoubtedly be a big, but fun, subplot to the season in the Bay Area. While Macklin Celebrini came up just short of the award in his rookie season, it will be interesting to see if one of the next batch of newcomers will be able to walk away with some hardware.
Photo Credit: Steven Bisig-Imagn Images
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