SAN JOSE, Calif. — Everyone has a story about the pingpong table at the San Jose Sharks‘ practice facility.

That includes the franchise players, role players and those who just got called up from the minors. Even the coaches and support staff members have stories about the piece of recreational equipment.

This includes second-year Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky. One day, while outside his office, he discovered Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith playing an unconventional style of pingpong.

“They’re playing pingpong with their shirts off, whacking each other with balls, having welts on them,” Warsofsky recalled. “That was kind of my first moment where I’m like, ‘Oh my God, these kids are 18 and 19 years old.’ But then you talk to them about hockey — and you talk to Mack and Will. They’re very mature kids for where they are at and being in the National Hockey League.

“And so when you see those things like the pingpong balls, as funny as it is, how do you handle that as a coach? Because on one hand, you want players to be who they are. But on the other, you’re also going, ‘I’m sorry, what?'”

Moments like this are reminders that, for all the excitement, expectation and promise of a Sharks rebuild, Celebrini is still 19, and Smith is 20. These two could become the next NHL super-duo, and they’re having fun in the process.

That’s what makes them so endearing to everyone in the Sharks’ organization, because of what it represents: belief.

Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin. Those are all duos who won the Stanley Cup. Although their organizations built around them in order to win, the point remains that they were the cornerstones in the first place.

With Celebrini and Smith in place, are the Sharks the next organization to follow that path?

REBUILDS ARE LIKE machines, in that there must be specific parts in place for everything to work. But even with those parts, there must be cohesion. A rebuild that has the parts and the cohesion could eventually turn into a dynasty — while a rebuild lacking that continuity is likely not headed anywhere close.

This is why the Sharks have brought in veterans like Dmitry Orlov and Tyler Toffoli, because they have played for teams that have developed strong cultures around their young players. It’s why they hired Warsofsky: He knows how to develop players, and has the drive to develop himself as a head coach. This is why everyone around the organization is so cautiously optimistic.

None of this is lost on Celebrini and Smith. For as grateful as they are to be in the NHL at such a young age, they know that even if they improve on their last-place finish (52 points) in 2024-25, the Sharks will likely be in the draft lottery again.

“We have so much talent and guys that could make this roster and make it better in the future,” Celebrini said. “But at the same time, we can’t just wait around for guys to develop or guys to come in. I think we want to be greedy right now and we want to start changing things right now.”

EVERY DUO HAS an origin story. It’s just that San Jose isn’t where it first began for Celebrini and Smith. It actually started in Switzerland at the IIHF U18 World Championships in 2023. Celebrini represented Canada while Smith played for the United States. Smith led the tournament in points, helping the U.S. win the gold medal. A year later, they played against each other at the World Junior Championships; Smith led the tournament in points (again), as the U.S. won gold (again).

College was no different. They played in the same city but were on opposite sides of one of the most storied rivalries in the collegiate game; Celebrini skated for Boston University while Smith played at Boston College. They played against each other four times, with Smith and BC winning three of those meetings; the final one was the Hockey East Championship.

Smith led the nation with 71 points as a freshman, while Celebrini was third with 64. However, Celebrini won the Hobey Baker Award as the nation’s top collegiate player. They each made it to the Frozen Four — where both lost to national champion Denver.

Drafting Smith with the fourth pick in 2023 was a significant addition for the Sharks. After winning the 2024 draft lottery and landing Celebrini, it led to a conversation about where the Sharks could be heading with their newfound duo.

“We never said a word to one another, and then, we came here for development camp,” Smith said. “And we really haven’t gone many days without each other. We talk about it sometimes that we’re [fighting for] the scoring title together. I’d check the box score and he’d light it up one night or I’d do the same and he’d get pissed off about it.”

Neither Celebrini nor Smith can pinpoint the exact moment that their friendship started. They both just said it happened naturally. They shared common interests like playing golf, playing cards on the team plane and — you guessed it — playing pingpong.

They also watch movies. Like, quite a few movies. On the day Smith spoke to ESPN, he said that he got Celebrini to watch “Horrible Bosses 2.” Just as he said that, Celebrini walked past him and yelled, “Rex! Rex!” in reference to the film’s antagonist, played by Chris Pine.

Another thing they have in common is that last season was the first time either of them played on a team that didn’t have a winning record or reach the postseason. They both admitted it was challenging to make that transition.

CELEBRINI SHOWED THAT he can handle the demands of being a top-line center last season, leading the Sharks with 63 points in 70 games and finishing second in the voting for the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie. Smith finished tied for fourth on the team in points, with 45 in 74 games.

Facing the tough grind of a rebuild together allowed Celebrini and Smith to develop their own community, and it expanded beyond the duo. Veterans like Tyler Toffoli and teammates closer in age such as Ty Dellandrea and William Eklund are part of that community. So are all-time Sharks greats such as Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton; Smith lives with Marleau while Celebrini lives with Thornton.

But to believe their first seasons were defined by their point totals or any other metrics tells only part of their story.

What they learned through the losing was more than the need to improve as a team. They learned how to rely on each other, while showing others that they can be relied upon, too. Instead of keeping to themselves with their goofiness, they wanted others to be part of the fun.

This is how Celebrini and Smith are starting to make their mark on the Sharks.

Some of this has made its way to the public. The most prominent example being the sleepover that happened in March. Celebrini and Smith made a bet with Toffoli that if all three scored in the same game, Toffoli would sleep in Celebrini and Smith’s hotel room. They each scored in the Sharks’ 6-2 win against the Buffalo Sabres, which led to the Sharks posting a picture of Celebrini and Smith smiling in their beds while Toffoli was on a cot with his back turned to the camera.

“I think it’s kind of funny but surprising at the same time,” Toffoli said of how people reacted to the sleepover. “We’re in a smallerish market here in San Jose, but the way it kind of blew up — that’s just us, and it wasn’t like it was just us in that room. There were six or seven of us in that room, which is definitely pretty funny.”

Naturally, the Sharks made their home-opening giveaway this season a Celebrini and Smith bobblehead, with the two of them in their beds and an option of purchasing Toffoli in a separate bobblehead to complete the set.

“It’s definitely pretty ridiculous,” Toffoli said.

Then there are the stories nobody knows about that speak to everything that embodies what it means to be Celebrini and Smith.

With the NHL hosting the 4 Nations Face-Off, it gave those players who weren’t playing a chance to get some rest. Celebrini and Smith were part of a group of Sharks players who organized a five-day golf trip to Arizona.

Everything was planned out, down to the courses they’d play, but there was one detail they overlooked: Celebrini and Smith were too young to rent an Airbnb and needed Dellandrea, who is 25, to book their accommodations.

“You forget how young they are sometimes,” Dellandrea said. “I think we forget that because they’re good people and as good hockey players as they are, they’re still that young.”

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FOR ALL THAT they have done to foster a community, the Sharks have also created the sort of community around Celebrini and Smith that could have a long-term impact.

That includes the homegrown talents who are on this year’s roster like Eklund, Sam Dickinson and Michael Misa, along with prospects they’ve acquired in trades, such as Yaroslav Askarov and Shakir Mukhamadullin.

It also includes players such as Dellandrea, Toffoli and Dmitry Orlov, who were brought in from elsewhere and who know what it means to have an organic team culture.

“It’s important because your team is your second family and you spend a lot of time with them and you have to have trust and believe in them in the tough times,” said Orlov, who was part of the core the Washington Capitals built around Backstrom and Ovechkin to win a Stanley Cup in 2018. “But it’s also a lifestyle, too. We have a fun life, and it can be up and down. Everybody can handle that differently, but it’s why you have teammates, you have a family that can support you.”

Orlov and Toffoli said where that support becomes even more crucial for young players in today’s game is when it comes to social media. They shared how both the criticisms and the praise are easily accessible, to the point that it can become too much for one person to handle without the right support system in place.

Toffoli said part of building that support system is to consistently “do the right things,” with the hope that young players feel the traits they are seeing are ones worth replicating.

Although Dellandrea might not have Orlov and Toffoli’s experience in terms of games played, he does have an experience that lends itself toward helping the Sharks’ young players in a different way. After starting his career with the Dallas Stars, Dellandrea knows what it’s like to be one of the youngest players on the roster, because there is a difference.

“I think no matter who it is, young or old, you want good seeds in your locker room,” Dellandrea said. “I think [Sharks GM Mike Grier] and Warzo have done a good job in that there are good people to be around.”

Making sure that Celebrini, Smith and the rest of the Sharks’ homegrown core are surrounded by strong-minded individuals is an objective that Warsofsky takes personally and seriously.

Part of the reason Grier hired Warsofsky was his ability to develop, teach and win at the AHL and ECHL levels. The principles that allowed Warsofsky to reach the NHL have also made him want to get better at his craft.

Coaching in the minors has given him the chance to work with young players. But Celebrini and Smith were the first teenagers he ever coached.

“That was a big adjustment,” Warsofsky said. “They’re very mature kids and they’re smart hockey players. But at the end of the day, they’re still 18 and 19 years old. You try to build a relationship, and it takes time. You see certain things that make them kids, and they’re both mature kids. But there’s a little side of them that lets you know they are teenagers.”

Warsofsky said seeing Celebrini and Smith whack each other with pingpong balls, while jarring, reminded him that it was important to let them grow up so they can develop the personalities that will someday be the voices that guide the franchise.

“I’m a big proponent of wanting personalities in our room,” Warsofsky said. “I want energy in the room. I think that’s important and that can be contagious. The more of that we have, the more swagger we’d be having with our hockey team. It translates to the ice.”

The Los Angeles Dodgers‘ pitching rotation has been the most dominant force of this year’s MLB playoffs, with L.A.’s four aces combining for a microscopic 1.40 ERA and 81 strikeouts over 10 postseason starts.

With seemingly every performance from Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani comes a new wave of stats that convey the rarity of their achievements racing around social media.

As L.A.’s four starters prepare to face the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series, we’re here to get you ready for their Fall Classic appearances with a guide to what each does best and the pitch mix that makes the quartet so dominant.

Blake Snell: The Game 1 guy

What he has done this October: 0.86 ERA, 12.0 K/9 in 21 IP

What makes him so good: Snell’s excellence is easy to understand: He has been a front-line starter for almost a decade, signed a $182 million deal last year and is a lefty who throws in the mid-90s. He already has two Cy Young awards and a 3.15 ERA over his 10-year big league career. But there has been a subtle change in his approach during his first year with the Dodgers that has powered his playoff dominance.

How he uses his pitches: Snell had been a power fastball/breaking ball pitcher for basically his whole career — but this season, his changeup became his second-most-used pitch and his clear best by run value (i.e., good things happened when he threw it this year, much more so than with his other pitches). Run value can be somewhat deceptive — what if your dominating fastball gets hitters on their heels, but the changeup gets the strikeout and all of the statistical credit for the strikeout? Snell seems to believe in what the numbers are showing, too.

His changeup usage was 23.6% in the regular season and is 32.4% in the playoffs. His regular-season miss rate on the pitch was 43.5%, and it’s 65.5% in the playoffs. It has been at 60% or higher in all three of his playoff starts. The pitch movement and velocity is almost identical to last year’s version, but the outcomes, specifically the in-zone contact rate and launch angle allowed, have improved pretty dramatically.

Snell threw the pitch only 2% of the time against left-handed hitters in the regular season, but that has ticked up in the playoffs, increasing with each start to 7% against the Brewers.

Those extra changeups are basically coming at the expense of his fastball usage. Throwing fewer fastballs is somewhat common in the high-stakes environment of the playoffs, but Snell is thriving by relying more on his changeup than his slider and curveball in those key situations this year.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto: The six-pitch magician

What he has done this October: 1.83 ERA, 8.2 K/9 in 19⅔ IP

What makes him so good: Yamamoto came into the league last year with a lot of hype and largely met it, but he missed nearly three months because of a shoulder issue after being hit around in his first big league appearance.

This year, he took a big step forward and looks more than worth his $325 million deal, throwing 173⅔ innings with a 2.49 ERA and sparkling peripherals that added up to a 5.0 WAR in the regular season. If you consult run values, all six of his pitches were better in 2025 than 2024, in addition to him throwing almost twice as many innings. What did he change?

The velocity and movement of his pitches are basically the same, and the usage of those pitches was basically the same, other than shifting 5% usage of his curveball to his cutter as he improved the movement on his cutter by a few inches.

How he uses his pitches: Take a look at the subtle shifts with his two best pitches: his four-seam fastball and splitter. Here are the locations of his fastball against right-handed hitters in the 2024 regular season (left) and 2025 regular season (right).

It’s subtle, but that singular red dot down the middle has migrated toward the edge of the zone, and there’s a little more action across the top of the strike zone, which is where most of the misses are occurring. His run value per fastball thrown almost doubled and the total runs saved went from plus-5 to plus-17 (a top-10 figure in baseball) while the xwOBA (expected production by hitters) went from .360 to .299 and his miss rate ticked up by 2%.

Though the difference in locations isn’t as easy to see, the execution of Yamamoto’s splitter also improved. His average launch angle allowed went from plus-1 to minus-8, and the barrel rate dropped from 17% to 9% which helped fuel a 24-point drop in xwOBA and a spike in miss rate on that pitch. His run value on that pitch is plus-9, third best in baseball.

When Yamamoto is dealing, it’s because of those two pitches, which are his most-used offerings against lefties and righties. And yes, they also tunnel well:

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 98mph Fastball and 93mph Splitter, Overlay

Good luck. 😳 pic.twitter.com/RDlNGBMTSd

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 7, 2025

Tyler Glasnow: The 6-foot-8 power arm

What he has done this October: 0.68 ERA, 12.2 K/9 in 13⅓ IP

What makes him so good: Glasnow’s style of pitching is a function of his immense physical gifts and, throughout his career, slowly figuring out how to solve the geometry problem they create.

He is 6-8 and a standout athlete who can generate the biggest extension (how far from the rubber he releases a pitch) in baseball while also throwing from one of the highest arm slots in the league. Glasnow’s long arms help create velocity easily but make it harder to repeat his delivery — so his precision within the strike zone can come and go. Due to this, he relies more on power than feel.

How he uses his pitches: Glasnow has mid-90s velocity but can achieve a flatter plane to the plate to get misses up in the strike zone due to his huge extension, which brings him lower on the mound to negate his height and high arm slot.

He has a natural ability to cut the ball, so his fastball has near-cutter break while sitting in the mid-90s, his slider has typical movement but comes in 3 mph harder than the average slider, and his curveball is also harder than the average bender — with six extra inches of drop.

He relies on that curveball against lefties because he doesn’t throw a changeup, and the slider is the breaker of choice against righties.

Glasnow’s use of these three main pitches puts hitters in conflict. He takes away their time to make decisions by throwing hard, and though he can’t get huge horizontal movement, he can tunnel the pitches so they look the same when the hitter is trying to decide. I could show you a plot of how he executes this, but it’s easier to see in video. Here’s a typical attack plan versus a right-handed hitter:

Tyler Glasnow, 97mph Fastball (foul) and 89mph Slider (Sword K), Individual Pitches + Overlay. pic.twitter.com/usSXo0Hng5

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) August 31, 2025

Glasnow’s game is one of extremes, but when he’s healthy and executing, he’s nearly unhittable.

Shohei Ohtani: The two-way sensation

What he has done this October: 2.25 ERA, 14.3 K/9 in 12 IP

What makes him so good: You mean besides being a three-time MVP (who is about to win his fourth award) as the most dominant two-way force the sport has seen — fresh off one of the most incredible performances in postseason history?

Well, the funny thing about Ohtani is that his eye-popping numbers at the plate and the two-way accolades make it easy to forget how good he is just as a pitcher. In a career that spans 100 regular-season starts, Ohtani has posted a 2.87 ERA and struck out 670 batters in 528⅔ innings.

How he uses his pitches: You remember Ohtani being a really good pitcher in 2023 with the Angels, and now he somehow seems better. How? Well, it’s pretty simple:

His velocity is up a few tenths on most of these pitches in the postseason, too, as you’d expect.

Before the “velocity isn’t everything” crowd blows a gasket, Ohtani’s zone% and strike% are better in 2025 than in 2023, and the shapes of his pitches haven’t really changed. He gave back an inch or so of movement on some of those off-speed pitches, a good swap given what the industry understands about pitching development.

When scouts in any sport talk about athleticism, it’s usually about several things that standout athleticism can affect. In Ohtani’s case, it’s quite obvious: He’s one of the best hitters, and at age 31, after multiple elbow surgeries, he can improve his velocity and strike-throwing at the same time when he was already one of the better pitchers in the game.

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Chase Briscoe gave Joe Gibbs Racing its second spot in NASCAR’s championship-deciding season finale with an overtime victory Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.

Briscoe raced to his first career superspeedway victory to join teammate Denny Hamlin as Toyota drivers guaranteed slots in the four-driver winner-take-all finale at Phoenix Raceway in two weeks.

Briscoe was sixth on the restart — a two-lap sprint in overtime to the finish — and Hendrick Motorsports drivers William Byron and Kyle Larson split the front row and lined up side by side for the Chevrolet drivers to control the restart.

Byron was getting help from behind from fellow Chevrolet driver Carson Hocevar, a driver for Hendrick-aligned Spire Motorsports. Larson’s push was from Toyota driver Bubba Wallace, who did get Larson into the lead.

But Larson appeared to run out of fuel and dropped dramatically off the pace and Byron, who is in danger of playoff elimination, lost his chance at victory when his push from Hocevar was too strong and it caused Byron to spin.

Briscoe, meanwhile, had no problems with all his help coming from JGR driver Ty Gibbs, the only one of his teammates not eligible for the championship.

“Ty Gibbs, just incredible teammate there. I mean, I honestly would not have won that race without Ty,” Briscoe said. “This is an amazing team effort. I can’t believe I won a superspeedway race. I haven’t done it at any level.”

There are two open spots left in the championship field to be determined next week in the third and final round of the playoffs. Larson and JGR driver Christopher Bell are above the elimination line, but Byron, Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott, and Team Penske drivers Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney are below the cut line.

Logano and Blaney have combined to win the past three Cup titles for Penske.

The race went to overtime when Chris Buescher was leading with two laps to go and he was spun from behind by Byron, who was shoved into Buescher by Hocevar. Buescher spun across the front of the pack and slammed hard into an inside wall in a one-car crash that sent the race to overtime.

Todd Gilliland finished second in a Ford for Front Row Motorsports — the team that alongside Michael Jordan-owned 23XI Racing is headed to mediation Tuesday in a federal antitrust suit — and Gibbs was third. Wallace, who drives for 23XI, was fourth.

ELLIOTT IN EARLY CRASH

Chase Elliott’s chances to advance into the final four took a hit when NASCAR’s most popular driver was collected in the first crash of the race.

Elliott, the 2020 NASCAR champion, was already below the cut line for elimination when he was caught in an early eight-car crash 52 laps into the race. It sent the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to the garage for repairs and dropped Elliott to last in the 40-car field.

Elliott now goes to Martinsville Speedway in a must-win situation to advance to the title-deciding finale at Phoenix for the first time since 2022.

“It is what it is, I can’t change it now,” Elliott said. “Just all eyes on Martinsville and try to go up there and get a win.”

Elliott won Martinsville once before, in 2020, when he parlayed the victory into his only Cup title.

UP NEXT

The final race to set the championship four, next Sunday at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia, where Blaney won last year to advance to the title deciding playoff finale.