Sharks fans celebrate Misa at Draft Party

SAN JOSE — It was no secret who the San Jose Sharks were selecting with the number two pick in the 2025 NHL Draft.

Down in Los Angeles at the Peacock Theater, WWE superstar and San Jose native Bailey had the honor to announce the Sharks had selected center Michael Misa from the OHL's Saginaw Spirit. Up here at the Shark Tank, aka the SAP Center, around 5,000 fans came out to celebrate what the organization expects to be another important piece to their rebuild which already includes Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith, Yaroslav Askarov, and Sam Dickinson.

Inside the arena it was a family themed style festival that included free giveaways, face painting, and taking a pic inside the Sharks head as a few of the festivities the fans were able to partake in before and during the NHL Draft which was displayed on the arena's scoreboard screens.

The Sharks had both their mascot SJ Sharkie and the San Jose Barracuda's mascot Frenzy lead the cheerleading to fire up the fans throughout the event. A stage was set up at the south goal line where PA announcer Danny Miller and in arena host Emily Harlan interviewed Sharks president Jonathan Becher before the draft started. Then Sharks radio play-by-play announcer Dan Rusanowky and Morning Tide podcast host Ted Ramey set up shop on stage with coverage on the Sharks Audio Network.

Becher marveled at how far San Jose come as a hockey city since they came into the league 34 years ago in 1991.

"The identity of this building, the identity of this city is teal," Becher said. "When I first moved here, that old Dionne Warwick song, 'Do you Know the Way to San Jose' was probably true. Now everyone knows where it is. It's where Sharks territory is headquartered. It just shows that all the doubters that said hockey wouldn't work in Northern California 30-some years ago are wrong. Our fans are the best in the world."

Sharks super fan Rick Cady, better known as Captain Hat Beard with his eclectic costume consisting of a teal tuxedo complete with video display sunglasses he wears to all Sharks events, was happy with the Sharks selection of Misa as he believed that was the choice that made the most sense for Team Teal.

"I'm good with that. Anything else wouldn't have made sense. He's going to help us in the future. We're still two or three years (away) from the playoffs, but we'll get there. I mean it was every expert's choice that the top two (picks) were (Matthew) Schaefer and Misa. If we weren't moving up to get Schaefer or moving down, I wanted us right where we were," Cady said.

Sharks content creator Brodie Brazil, who interviewed Misa shortly after he was selected, said it's important for the Sharks to hit home runs with these top draft picks of the past few years that will help the ease the pains of a rebuild where the Sharks have finished as the worst or second to worst team in the past two seasons.

"It's kind of weird to be so excited about having these high drafts pics and capitalize on them, I just talked to Michael (Misa) by the way on a Zoom he's very exciting, you would like to see it all come together finally after a long time of seeing things not working out," Brazil noted.

According to Brazil, it was a no-brainer for Sharks general manager Mike Grier and his staff to make the Misa the second overall pick of this year's draft.

"Out of all the maybe widespread speculation over the past 72 hours, I think that was for show, I think there was a little bit of smoke blowing, assuming that Schaefer was going number one, I think it was the right move, the only move and the one you're going to look back on years down the road and say this is the move you want to do, this is the move you got to do and I'm very happy they did it," Brazil said.

Speaking of Misa, the 18-year-old 6'1" 185-pound center who is a native of Oakview, Ontario, Canada, led the OHL, which is considered to be the best juniors league in all of hockey, in points with 134 in just 65 appearances. That is the highest single season total in the OHL since former Stanley Cup champion Patrick Kane registered 145 back in 2007. Misa had multi-points in 45 consecutive games during the 65-game stretch.

While he might not be NHL-ready yet, it's not difficult to realize why Sharks fans should be excited about the future. It's another building block that when it comes together, it won't be too much longer for San Jose to be a contender again for Lord Stanley's Cup.

San Jose closed out the first round by selecting goalie Joshua Ravensbergen with the 30th selection of the NHL Draft. Ravensbergen, 18, played for the WHL's Prince George Cougars where he went 33-13-4 with a 3.00 goals-against average and .901 save percentage in 51 games for the Cougars.