For an evening, all was right in the world. No pandemic, no empty arena, Sharks play comeback hockey and win on opening night. The past two seasons have been unkind to hockey in San Jose, but Saturday night was like jumping into a time machine and traveling back to the salad days of Sharks hockey. San Jose overcame a two goal deficit, to upend the Winnipeg Jets at SAP Center with a 4-3 comeback victory.

28 of the NHL’s 32 teams have opened their 2021-22 campaigns with games which started on Tuesday evening. The San Jose Sharks are one of four teams that have to wait until Saturday to officially start their season. For the four rookies who have been named to the Sharks opening night roster, it’s been more than a waiting game. They’re officially roster players, but until their names get inked onto a game lineup, they're simply names on a list. They may or may not be included on San Jose’s list of players who officially participate in Saturday’s game against the Winnipeg Jets at SAP Center. One of those rookies is defenseman Santeri Hatakka, a 20-year-old from Riihimaki, Finland, who is hoping his name is on the lineup sheet.

Things are changing in the NHL. Not only is the league skewing younger, faster, and more data driven. It is also adopting a far more humane character, one that – frankly – has been long overdue. For years fans and media alike have joked about the rote, robotic answers that players give during the ubiquitous “between period interview”. We can all quote the usual platitudes about ‘giving their best’, ‘those other guys are a talented team’, and ‘working real hard out there’. While that’s good for a laugh, it hardly creates a sense of authenticy.

After back-to-back non-playoff seasons, not much is expected from the Sharks in the upcoming 2021-22 season. (DRatings, for example, gives the Sharks a .6 percent chance of winning it all this season. Not 6 percent, that’s .6 percent.) There could be reasons for optimism, though, given a growing crop of quality young players, anchored by William Eklund, Ryan Merkley, and Jonathan Dahlen, who would be in their rookie seasons if they make the squad.

Well, here we are the cusp of another NHL campaign. Can anyone even remember the last ‘normal’ season? For those who may need a refresher, when we last saw the league in a semblance of normal it was March of 2020. The Toronto Maple Leafs had just lost a game to a Zamboni driver. Marc-Andre Fleury looked like a lifer in Las Vegas. And the San Jose Sharks were putrid.

The Sharks kickoff their 2021-22 NHL campaign in a little more than a week and from the looks of it, that will be the start of a very long season. San Jose did little to improve on a roster that that lost 14 more games than they won the prior season. There was no marquee free agent signing during the offseason. No blockbuster trade. Nada. Zilch. It has all the makings of a repeat of the last two seasons. Any success will be lauded as a great achievement. If the Sharks do what everyone expects, and mop up in the Pacific Division basement, then they will have simply accomplished what everyone expected.