This was a DISASTER...

The Sharks had one thing working for them, a 20-year-old superstar and his best friend playing together every single night on the ice. And on Tuesday, before the puck even dropped, the coach split him up. Final score, Sabres 2, Sharks 0, the Sharks only had 23 shots, Buffalo had 40. Today I'm going to show you why splitting up Will Mac was a horrible experiment, and why it's one that needs to end tomorrow. First, what they broke. Look, Celebrini and Will Smith have played together on the same line for almost their entire careers. In 12 games with them together, the Sharks scored 37 goals. That's 3.1 goals a game in the regular season, and they were 6-5-1. Celebrini has 15 points in 11 games this season, 5 goals and 10 assists. He leads the Sharks by 6 points. Smith has 35 shots on goal in 13 games, 2.7 a game. That is in the 91st percentile in the league, and nobody was asking him to change. Now look at who moved in next to Smith. Michael Mesa has 13 shots in 13 games, won a game. Mason Marchman has 23, about 1.8 a game. So the Sharks took Will Smith, who is about a three-shot-a-game player at this point, put him next to two players who barely shoot, and that is not a bounce. That is spreading out your only shooter. Then came the pregame skate on October 27th, and Smith wasn't on Celebrini's line anymore. Celebrini got Evar Stenberg and Colin Graf. Smith went between Marchment and Michael Mesa. Here's the part that stings. Will Smith was a winger that night, and they didn't even discuss if they should put him in his natural position in the center at all. This isn't the first time Worsoski has tried this either. Last November, he split them up on the power play too when the power play was in free fall. So that was the plan. Break up the best thing you have going, and hopefully the other lines wake up. The power play is the proof. Before this game, the Sharks went 5-for-11 on the power play over the previous three games, according to Shengpeng at San Jose Hockey Net. celebrini and smith run the top power play unit and that's the only place they were still playing together consistently and that was the only place the sharks were scoring now the results san jose lost two to nothing and was outshot 40 to 23. Yaroslav Askarov stopped 38 of 39 shots it was one to nothing until an empty net goal that is a goalie stealing a night not a lineup working and remember they didn't just lose they scored zero in the 12 games before the split they got shut out once in dallas on october the 5th now it's twice The Sharks are 6-6-1 now. That is five losses in their last eight games. And the lines didn't change for practice the next day. They remained the exact same, and they're running it back. One game is a small sample, I know. But the real question is, why would you do this to your best line? It makes no sense. So I went with what they actually said. This is what Ryan Worsowksi had to say about splitting them before the game. This is what Worsowksi said, quote, Just to balance our lines really is where it starts. We looked at it and we haven't generated a whole lot of 5-on-5 offense, so we've got to try to get something going. But think about that. He says they're not creating a lot 5-on-5, but the only line that is creating 5-on-5, he broke up. Look at that. Balance. The whole plan is balance. Not a fix, not a reason you can see. Balance. Now here's what Macklin Celebrini said after loss, after his first game without playing with Will Smith, and this comes from Shang Peng again from the San Jose hockey now. Celebrini said reality was we weren't really creating much or we weren't scoring. When things aren't working you've just got to switch it up a little bit. I think it's nothing really to read into too much. Nothing to read into. That is the best player being a good teammate and he's not going to call out the coach but I will. Think about how this reads to the room. You're told you're going to try something out. You lose two to nothing and then you're told yeah we're going to do the exact same thing the next day because the real problem that night was who was playing with who? Listen to what the coach had to say. Worsowksi said, you want it the easy way? It's not the easy way in the National Hockey League. The easy way was long stretch passes, and Jacob Trouba, who wore an A last night, talked about that. Trouba said, I don't think you want to get too spaced out. Maybe every once in a while, you'll catch one of those, but wouldn't say it's a higher percentage way to sustain offense. Warsawski said it too, quote, you got to get comfortable being uncomfortable. So the coach says the problem is the approach, so does the veteran defenseman and Jacob Trouba, neither of them say the problem is having Celebrini and Smith together. Then there was the human moment of the night where Kesselring played against his former team for the first time. Kesselring said, quote, it was hard in the first. It was pretty emotional, honestly, for me tonight. Kesselring said again, obviously, personally, I wanted to show that they made a mistake, but we didn't win. And that's what really matters. That is a room that wants to win and they lost two to nothing, which brings me to the biggest argument and the best argument about the split. So if the line isn't the problem, what is? I went into our data to kind of talk about some of the things that the coach did. The Sharks allow 9.1 high danger shots a game. That is second most in the league, 31st of 32 teams. And their goalies are saving 85.6% of those chances. The league average on it is 80.6%. Read that again. The goalies are bailing out a defense that's giving up grade A chances and still losing games. And Ascroft just proved this by having 38 on 39 shots last night. So the focus for Ryan Warsawski shouldn't be on the five-on-five scoring. It should be eliminating these chances that are happening right in front of our net. And like Trouba said, if you're making a lot of these stretch passes and that's what you're relying on to score, it's not going to work. A line that holds the puck, makes great passes, and makes plays as well in the Celebrini and Smith line is the cure for this, and they just cut it in half. Here is the best case against this. Celebrini says that this line can still make it happen. Celebrini, quote, that line can create as many chances as anyone. And he did. In the second period, Celebrini set up Colin Graf for what looked like a tap-in, and Buffalo goalie Colton Ellis made a toe save, which was unbelievable. And that is the problem with calling it an experiment, because an experiment has control, and the control was the first 12 games of the season where the Sharks scored 37 goals. So the line didn't fail, the shot didn't go in. Fair, but look at what that proves. When Celebrini is the one that is making these plays happen, the chances are going to come. Obviously, when he's playing with Will Smith, I think Will Smith can bury a lot of these chances, and that's why these guys are great together, but splitting them up didn't add a line. It just moved the chance around, and the coach knows it. He kept them together on the power play, just doesn't trust them five on five. Look at it from Celebrini's side. He's 20 years old. He has 44 shots on goal in 11 games, four a game, and he just lost a linemate who knows where he is on the ice. Great players make the people next to them better, And the best way to find out what a player does is to leave them alone for more than just one game. If Worsawski wants to try something, move Stenberg up to the top line. That's something we've all been calling for. And that's what we thought the line was going to be going into last night's game until the lines came out in practice. So just make a move. Just don't split up these guys together. Don't split up the one thing that you have working, the chemistry between Will Smith and Macklin Celebrini. We're only 13 games in, and there's a lot of hockey left to play this season, but you can experiment, just not with the one things that are working. So here's the verdict. One game, one shutout, 23 shots, a coach that says the problem was the approach, and a 20-year-old that says there's nothing to read into. When a coach splits his best line to fix a problem that his players say have nothing to do with this line, that's not balanced. That's a horrible experiment. Celebrini and Smith hopefully will be back on the same line for the next game, at least we want it to be but if that if the offense is still stuck when they're back together try something else try adding another player on this line and the guy I'm looking at is Ivar Stemberg tell me in the comments what you guys are thinking do you think we should reunite Will Mack or should we keep them apart let me know down below in the comments and that is going to be it for another episode here of Sharks Digest if you enjoyed the video go down below hit that subscribe button put those notifications on so you do know live when we go live with watch alongs and for videos here i'll be back for with a watch along tomorrow night against Vancouver this should be a game that gets us back on track and if you guys are enjoying hit that subscribe button go down below in the comment section if you made it this far let me know what your favorite moment of the season has been so far and as always i've been your host Casey we'll catch you in the next one keep your stick on the ice