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Rukkr Original NHL · SJS By The Beat Guy Sep 17, 2026

Reaves Out Too. The Old Guard Is Gone.

Ryan Reaves announced his retirement this week, and with that, the last recognizable faces from San Jose's previous organizational identity have cleared out. Klingberg went first, hanging up his skates after 700 NHL games. Agozzino retired earlier in the offseason. Bailey left for the KHL. Colin White signed elsewhere. Now Reaves. The list got long quietly.

I wrote about Klingberg's exit a few days ago — how 700 games lands as punctuation for this franchise rather than eulogy. Reaves is a different kind of footnote, a player who divided the locker room and the fanbase in roughly equal measure, but his departure completes the same picture. The Sharks aren't just rebuilding around youth; they've methodically cleared the roster of every player who represented what the team was before Celebrini arrived.

What's left is intentional. Trouba, Kesselring, Nurse on the back end. Celebrini locked in for five years. Graf re-signed. Ivar Stenberg coming. The front office didn't stumble into this roster shape — they spent the offseason engineering it, piece by piece. The retirements and departures weren't the plan, but they fit it.

Training camp opens soon with a roster that looks almost nothing like last April's. That's the point.

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