I have returned to the SAP Center to catch my ninth Sharks game this season and my first game in two weeks. It is also the Sharks’ last afternoon matinee game of the season and my first time seeing the Philadelphia Flyers play in person. The ever-important promotional theme to this particular game is Barbie Game Day, and the free giveaway item to everyone in attendance was a Sharks & Barbie cross-body bag, available in either teal, magenta, or pink. SJ Sharkie was dressed as Ken from the Barbie Movie for this occasion. I can tell that the Sharks tried hard to appeal to a certain target demographic with this particular promo theme. As for souvenirs I purchased at this game, these were a Michael Misa t-shirt and a box of Upper Deck 2025-26 Series 2 hockey cards, both of which were purchased separately.
The first two minutes of this contest featured the first fight I have seen in a while at a hockey game I attended, which occurred near center ice between Ryan Reaves and Garrett Wilson. It was a solid, likely pre-coordinated, tilt, but Wilson appeared to have earned the decision there. The Flyers struck first early in the second period via Owen Tippett, while the Sharks evened things up at one later in the middle frame on a power play goal by Dmitry Orlov for his third goal of the season, assisted by William Eklund and Macklin Celebrini. With just under three minutes to go in the second period, the second fight of the contest broke out, this time between Barclay Goodrow and Noah Cates.
Early in the third period, the Flyers went ahead via Christian Dvorak on a power play goal that would ultimately stand as the game-winner. Despite taking this costly penalty, it was great to see Mario Ferraro stick up for Macklin Celebrini after Garnet Hathaway laid a shoulder-to-shoulder check on Celebrini. In the final two minutes of this contest, Philadelphia finished this one off on two empty-netters from Travis Sanheim and Noah Cates. Alex Nedeljkovic bounced back from his previous start the other night against Buffalo, recording 24 saves on 26 shots against. However, the Sharks were unable to solve Flyers goalie Dan Vladar for the most part.
On the other hand, I tried a new food item at SAP Center for the first time: the teriyaki chicken karage rice bowl from Sushi Confidential, and I certainly enjoyed it. At one point during the game, I noticed Yaroslav Askarov and Igor Chernyshov sitting in a suite above and not far from where I was seated inside the arena, both of whom are day-to-day with injuries. I didn’t expect Tyler Toffoli to play in this game due to injury, and I had also found out the morning of that Vincent Desharnais was out due to an injury.
Overall, this was a tough loss for the Sharks, as it was a close contest that they had a chance to win until the very end. Most notably, I am officially halfway through seeing all 32 NHL teams play in person, and this major milestone towards achieving one of my top life goals was enough to make this latest game absolutely worth it. Regular game reviews resume on Tuesday, when the Sharks visit the Nashville Predators for the first time this season in the first of three consecutive road games at 5 pm PT.
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