The San Jose Sharks just got more fun

They might not win a lot of games, but hockey is a game and games are supposed to be fun, right?

Happy Friday.

It’s the last Friday before my daughter goes to first grade, so we spent the day down at Cedar Point. The kids had a blast.

Of course while I was trying to ignore hockey for most of the day there was a pretty notable trade and the Nashville Predators traded Yaroslav Askarov to the San Jose Sharks.

The Sharks still have MacKenzie Blackwood and Vitek Vanecek under contract for next season, but Askarov instantly becomes the goalie of the future for that franchise and should get the lion-share of the starts this season, in my opinion.

San Jose has a long way to go in the rebuild, but from an entertainment perspective, they’ve added two of my favorite players to cover this summer.

Back in June, the Sharks added Jake Walman from the Detroit Red Wings in a puzzling deal for Detroit.

Walman, as you probably know if you read this site, is a showman who embraces the lighter side of the game.

Askarov has a very similar view of the game.

Here’s what he told me during the 2022-23 season.

“They’ve got more personality and show more personality, I came over from a new country and don’t know NBA or NFL rules,” Askarov said. “But guys are smiling, celebrating, having fun after a touchdown. And it’s like, ‘wow, they are having fun, the game is supposed to be fun.’ Hockey can be so serious sometimes, people don’t look like they are having fun.”

Top goalie prospect Yaroslav Askarov on personality, bench pressing nets, and trying to grow the game

Part of the impetus for that story was this moment.

So yeah, the Sharks aren’t going to be very good this season. But they are going to be much higher on the watchability rankings.