{"id":202220,"date":"2025-10-10T05:45:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T05:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/202220\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T05:45:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T05:45:10","slug":"san-jose-sharks-hasso-plattner-laments-past-mistakes-eyes-better-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/202220\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks’ Hasso Plattner laments past mistakes, eyes better future"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE \u2013 San Jose Sharks billionaire owner Hasso Plattner offered a stinging critique of some decisions<\/a> made by the team\u2019s previous hockey operations department, particularly its drafting,<\/a> but is confident the franchise is on an upward trajectory<\/a> and wants to see it compete for a playoff spot as soon as the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n

Saying he suffered alongside the team\u2019s fans as the Sharks floundered<\/a> for six straight seasons and slid to the bottom<\/a> of the NHL standings, Plattner indicated he wished the organization had started a complete rebuild two years earlier than it did in 2022. That year, Mike Grier was hired<\/a> as the Sharks\u2019 general manager and began a systematic teardown of the roster, from which the team is only now emerging.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to talk to you guys when the team is sinking slowly,\u201d Plattner said Thursday in his first comments to local media in close to a decade.<\/a> \u201cThen it was necessary that we basically replace the whole team. \u2026 That\u2019s where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plattner, who was at SAP Center to mark the team\u2019s long-term lease agreement<\/a> at the downtown arena with the City of San Jose, and the renaming of W. St. John St. as Sharks Way, said the team exacerbated its issues with some questionable signings and poor drafting.<\/a><\/p>\n

Plattner, 81, said he understood the blockbuster acquisition<\/a> of Erik Karlsson from the Ottawa Senators in 2018, as it was a last gasp to win a Stanley Cup with team icons Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski. But he lamented that the deal cost them center Josh Norris, a 2017 first-round draft pick by San Jose, and an unprotected 2020 first-round selection that became Tim Stutzle, the Senators\u2019 leading scorer two of the last three seasons.<\/p>\n

The Sharks advanced to the Western Conference final with Karlsson in 2019 and subsequently signed him to an eight-year, $92 million contract, the richest deal in team history.<\/a> That year, the Sharks let Pavelski walk as a free agent, which Plattner said was a mistake.<\/p>\n

The Sharks, who traded Karlsson to the Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> in 2023, have missed the playoffs for six straight seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cEK65 was probably the last real try to keep the level of the Thornton and Pavelski (era),\u201d Plattner said. \u201cFirst, one guy is not enough. Second, you know (Karlsson\u2019s) qualities and you know his deficiencies. He was not the most, how do I say it, team-friendly player. He was good, but he was probably very good on a very good team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Karlsson contract, along with other long-term deals handed out by former longtime general manager Doug Wilson, hamstrung the Sharks\u2019 ability to add to the roster as the COVID-19 pandemic cratered NHL revenues and created a mostly flat salary cap from 2020 to 2024.<\/p>\n

The Sharks were well out of the playoff picture in 2022 when they signed Tomas Hertl to an eight-year, $65.1 million contract extension.<\/p>\n

Before he signed Brent Burns to an eight-year, $64 million extension in November 2016, Wilson had refused to sign contracts longer than five years, but said at the time that the league\u2019s shifting landscape caused him to adjust his thinking. The Sharks then handed out long-term deals to Couture, fellow forward Evander Kane, defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic, and goalie Martin Jones.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still had the hope, or Wilson still had the hope, that he could turn it around with (Logan) Couture and Hertl,\u201d Plattner said, who became part owner of the Sharks in 2002 and became sole owner earlier this decade. \u201cAll these years we worked together, he told me he doesn\u2019t like long-term contracts, and this is wrong with the other ones too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen all of a sudden we (sign) Vlasic long-term, Hertl long-term, EK65 long-term. I don\u2019t know what happened. Probably (Wilson) was afraid of the future. If we lose these players, he will go down with a losing team, which we finally did after 12 years at being top of the league, or in the top five, at least.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SharksSharks Owner Hasso Plattner speaks during a pregame ceremony before the San Jose Sharks\u2019 home opener against the Vegas Golden Knights at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (Shae Hammond\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

After 19 seasons as the Sharks\u2019 GM, Wilson stepped down in April 2022 because of a medical issue<\/a> that led him to go on leave in November 2021.<\/p>\n

Plattner said Wilson was dealing with \u201cpermanent headaches\u201d the year he stepped away from the team. In July 2022, the Sharks parted ways with his son,<\/a> Doug Wilson Jr., who was the Sharks\u2019 director of scouting for four years.<\/p>\n

In Oct. 2022, the Sharks honored Wilson\u2019s legacy by raising a banner with his initials to the rafters at SAP Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a good guy, very good hockey sense. But when you have a sickness, like he had, permanent headaches, I don\u2019t want to have this,\u201d Plattner said of Doug Wilson. \u201cAnd he was living in Phoenix, and the team was here. Much more, I\u2019m negative about his son.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his tenure as scouting director, Wilson Jr.\u2019s most notable draft picks included forwards William Eklund, Filip Bystedt, Cam Lund, Thomas Bordeleau, and Ozzy Wiesblatt, and defensemen Ryan Merkley and Artemi Kniazev. Eklund, drafted in 2021, remains with the team, and Lund and Bystedt are with the San Jose Barracuda of the AHL. Wiesblatt is now with the Nashville Predators, and Merkley, another first-round pick, has spent the past two seasons in the KHL.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was not drafting well. He was totally over his pay grade, and that was another mistake I probably made,\u201d Plattner said of Wilson Jr. \u201cI didn\u2019t see that, and we were always relatively good at drafting. All of a sudden we lost it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plattner has been more pleased with more recent drafts, which, unlike most of Wilson Jr.\u2019s tenure, have seen the team select at or near the start of the first round. Since 2023, the Sharks have netted forwards Will Smith, Quentin Musty, Macklin Celebrini, and Michael Misa, defenseman Sam Dickinson, and goalie Josh Ravensbergen in the first round.<\/p>\n

Plattner, who said he will attend more Sharks games this season, said he\u2019s not interested in another year when it would have the best odds of winning the NHL Draft Lottery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope we don\u2019t have to go for (Gavin) McKenna,\u201d mentioning the player who is thought to be the best player available in next year\u2019s draft. \u201cThat\u2019s my word too. I just talked to (coach Ryan Warsofsky). No McKenna here now, and (Grier) said, \u2018Absolutely not, absolutely not.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Celebrini, a superstar in waiting, and Smith are in their second NHL season, and Misa and Dickinson are just starting their first. Musty is with the Barracuda and Ravensbergen, who was drafted in June, was returned to junior hockey.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so happy about Celebrini, how he can do everything,\u201d Plattner said. \u201cBut he does everything possible for the other players, for his partners on the ice. He is a leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNext year, we should be close,\u201d Plattner said about the playoffs. \u201cWith Dickinson then fully engaged, Misa being on close to the same level as Celebrini scoring. We should not push them too hard. Say if this year, if they (make the playoffs) for whatever good reason, fine, but you cannot push them. Look, some of them are only 18. They\u2019re not even allowed to drink a beer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally Published: October 9, 2025 at 9:12 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2013 San Jose Sharks billionaire owner Hasso Plattner offered a stinging critique of some decisions made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,56495,485,3915,56492,3914,575,12204,7527,56496,56494,56497,85],"class_list":["post-202220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-hockey","tag-inside-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-nhl","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-sharks-alert","tag-south-bay","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}