With the 2024 NHL Draft now in the rearview mirror, the Sharks' roster of the future is beginning to take shape.
The organization clearly is building up a promising prospect pool, with newly minted first-round picks Macklin Celebrini and Sam Dickinson at the forefront, but the Sharks will need more than just talent to win games.
After Friday's first round, first-time NHL head coach Ryan Warsofsky spoke to Brodie Brazil about how he plans to instill an identity in San Jose.
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"It's obviously going to start in training camp, but it's going to be a process," Warsofsky explained. "They say Rome wasn't built overnight, so this is going to take some time."
Of course, after a league-worst 19-54-9 record during the 2023-24 NHL season, it's hard to expect this team to instantly turn things around and be competitive.
It's also going to take time for the 36-year-old Warsofsky -- the NHL's youngest head coach -- to figure things out himself in his first season leading the Sharks.
"It's going to be leaning on the leadership group -- that's going to be important for me -- leaning on my staff," Warsofsky told Brazil about his coaching mentality. "We're going to be in this together, I can tell you that right now, from top to bottom.
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"To get us going in the right direction, we need everyone pulling the rope the right way."
It is a team effort, but the Sharks' path to success rides heavily on the shoulders of their young talent: Celebrini, Dickinson, and 2023 first-rounder Will Smith, among others. The potential of these prospects isn't in question; it's getting the most out of that promise.
Warsofsky detailed his approach to developing these budding stars.
"We got to push them, we got to challenge them," Warsofsky said. "I think today's player has this belief in what they want to be and what they can be. My job is to push them to even higher standards of that.
"I think I do a really good job of pushing and challenging players to believe in something they might not be able to believe in. That's the philosophy that I believe in, because I never want to say I can't do something."
Instead, Warsofsky wants the group to concentrate on how they can reach those lofty goals and immediately get to work.
Still, as with the team's success as a whole, the Sharks' bench boss recognized that his individual players can't instantly become stars, either. That part also will be a gradual process.
"It's going to be a focus level of, we're going to work on one thing, one day at a time," Warsofsky detailed. "We can't get wrapped up in three months from now, four months from now, and three years from now. We gotta focus on day one of training camp and go from there."
As NHL free agency kicks off Monday, Warsofsky and the Sharks now will shift their focus to finding veteran talent to complement these encouraging draft picks going forward.