San Jose Hockey Now\u2019s prediction<\/a>in early June: \u201cIf Eklund and the Sharks discuss three or four-year extensions, over $5 million AAV seems like a realistic possibility.\u201d<\/p>\nSo\u00a0no argument with the not my money anyway.<\/p>\n
The Sharks, however, may regret not locking up their budding star to more years\u2026but Eklund is\u00a0also\u00a0not a sure thing to develop into a playoff-caliber first-line winger.\u00a0And from Eklund\u2019s perspective, he\u2019s sick of losing, so\u00a0I\u2019m sure that he would want to commit long-term to a winning program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So\u00a0it\u2019s couple\u00a0that\u2019s moving in together,\u00a0but isn\u2019t sure if they\u2019re ready to get married yet.<\/p>\n
Grade: A<\/p>\n
John\u00a0Klingberg<\/p>\n
Klingberg, 32, signed a one-year, $4 million contract with the Sharks.<\/p>\n
If healthy, the 6-foot-2 right-hander should prove to be a bargain. In his prime, he was one of the top offensive\u00a0defensemen\u00a0in the NHL, and he looked spry during the Edmonton Oilers\u2019 Stanley Cup Final run.<\/p>\n
But he\u2019s also played just 25 regular-season games over the last two years because of\u00a0persistent hip troubles.<\/p>\n
The Sharks also don\u2019t have a secure safety net to quarterback the top power-play unit after\u00a0Klingberg.\u00a0So\u00a0he better stay healthy.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s high-risk, high-reward\u00a0move, even on a one-year pact.\u00a0But it also could have the greatest pay-off of any of Grier\u2019s moves this summer.<\/p>\n
Grade: B-<\/p>\n
Adam\u00a0Gaudette<\/p>\n
The Sharks inked 28-year-old center-winger\u00a0Gaudette\u00a0to a two-year, $4 million contract.<\/p>\n
Gaudette\u00a0has had an interesting career track: In 2019-20, he had 33 points in 59 games with the Vancouver Canucks. Last year, he scored a career-high 19 goals with the Ottawa Senators.<\/p>\n
In between, however,\u00a0Gaudette\u00a0bounced between the NHL and AHL with multiple organizations.<\/p>\n
NHL scouts think that he\u2019s a legitimate talent though, so if he\u2019s finally found his consistency, he could prove to be another bargain.<\/p>\n
At worst, he should be a usable\u00a0fourth-liner.<\/p>\n
Grade: B+<\/p>\n
Philipp\u00a0Kurashev<\/p>\n
Kurashev, 25, signed a one-year, $1.25 million contract with the Sharks.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-0 center-winger is yet another reclamation project: The Chicago Blackhawks declined to qualify him after he scored just 14 points in 51 games last year. In 2023-24, he had a career-high 54 points.<\/p>\n
So\u00a0will the real\u00a0Kurashev\u00a0please stand up?<\/p>\n
Grade: B<\/p>\n
Alex\u00a0Nedeljkovic<\/p>\n
The Sharks traded a 2028\u00a0third-rounder\u00a0to the Pittsburgh Penguins for\u00a0Nedeljkovic.<\/p>\n
On and off the ice,\u00a0Nedeljkovic\u00a0should be an excellent complement to star prospect\u00a0Yaroslav\u00a0Askarov.<\/p>\n
Dealing a\u00a0third-rounder\u00a0seems like a high price for your backup goalie, but it was important to find a compatible personality who\u2019s capable of stepping up between the pipes if\u00a0Askarovfalters, but also has no problem taking a backseat.<\/p>\n
Losing a third-rounder hurts, but the Sharks should be able to easily recoup that by the 2028 Draft.<\/p>\n
Grade: A-<\/p>\n
Dmitry Orlov<\/p>\n
Orlov, 33, signed a two-year, $13 million contract ($6.5 million AAV) with the Sharks.<\/p>\n
For most of his career, Orlov has been one of the better two-way defensemen in the league and was the No. 2 blueliner for the 2018 Stanley Cup-winning Washington Capitals. Orlov, however, had an up-and-down last two seasons with the Carolina Hurricanes.<\/p>\n
Like many of the Sharks\u2019 acquisitions this off-season, Orlov will have to find the fountain of the youth, but the 5-foot-11 left-hander is still a quality\u00a0blueliner, and should be a steadying force for what\u2019s been one of the league\u2019s worst defenses\u00a0over\u00a0the last three years.<\/p>\n
And if his decline is real, a two-year commitment won\u2019t hurt. Orlov is also regarded as\u00a0a solid\u00a0locker room presence, which the young Sharks always need.<\/p>\n
Grade: A-<\/p>\n
Nick Leddy<\/p>\n
The Sharks claimed the 34-year-old blueliner off waivers from the St. Louis Blues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In his day, the 6-foot-0 left-hander was also one of the better two-way defenders\u00a0in the league. Leddy slipped last year, but still retains most of his trademark skating\u00a0chops.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s in the last year of his contract, $4 million AAV. Just two seasons ago, Leddy still provided\u00a0top-four\u00a0caliber\u00a0work, so hopefully he was just banged up last year.<\/p>\n
Grade: A<\/p>\n
Jeff Skinner<\/p>\n
Skinner, 33, signed a one-year, $3 million pact with the Sharks.<\/p>\n
Skinner is a six-time 30-goal scorer, peaking with 40 in 2018-19. He\u2019s slumped the last two seasons, though, with 24 in 2023-24 and 16 last year.<\/p>\n
There were extenuating circumstances, however, as the 6-foot left winger played a career-low 13:00 a night with the Stanley Cup Final-bound Oilers.<\/p>\n
Skinner is a prime buy-low opportunity, but frankly, there are reasons why he lasted so long in free agency and came relatively cheap.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan score a bit, doesn\u2019t offer much else,\u201d an NHL scout told San Jose Hockey Now.<\/p>\n
For a team looking to get to the next level, ideally, you\u2019d like to add a more well-rounded scorer. But as we\u2019re about to get to in our overall off-season grade, when it comes to the last-place Sharks, beggars can\u2019t be choosers.<\/p>\n
Grade: B-<\/p>\n
Ryan Reaves<\/p>\n
The Sharks acquired the 38-year-old enforcer for Henry\u00a0Thrun.<\/p>\n
On the surface, swapping a 24-year-old defenseman for a limited and older skater \u2014 Reaves played 7:48 a night last year \u2014 seems like an obvious\u00a0no-no.<\/p>\n
But honestly, both\u00a0Thrun\u00a0and Reaves are\u00a0considered\u00a0low-value\u00a0trade\u00a0assets, and Reaves brings a very particular set of skills to the Sharks that they don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n
Thrun\u00a0is a fork, which the Sharks have plenty of, while Reaves is a meat tenderizer, one of the few around the NHL.<\/p>\n
Although Reaves has slowed down on the ice, non-Sharks league sources believe he\u2019s still one of the most feared enforcers in the NHL, will protect San Jose\u2019s many young stars, and will also inject a one-of-a-kind energy into a quiet locker room.<\/p>\n
Grade: B<\/p>\n
I\u2019d give the Sharks a B- grade this offseason.<\/p>\n
Individually, Grier has made a series of good-to-great moves. But collectively, I\u2019m not sure that these moves\u00a0will\u00a0take the Sharks out of the cellar.<\/p>\n
On one hand, it\u2019s not\u00a0necessarily\u00a0Grier\u2019s fault, it\u2019s hard to sell the top free agents on a last-place team. Grier, wisely, also exercised caution with his free agent expenditures, not overextending himself in the middle class of the market \u2014 there\u2019s a danger in overspending on free agents\u00a0and ending up with\u00a0a better-but-ultimately-mediocre team.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Grier built the team that has finished last in back-to-back seasons. If San Jose is still unattractive to free agents, it\u2019s Grier\u2019s short-term pain for his vision of long-term gain.<\/p>\n
The Sharks need to get out of last place sooner than later, and hopefully, this is the group that does it.\u00a0Right now, that\u2019s very much still in doubt.<\/p>\n
Download and follow the San Jose Hockey Now podcast<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How would I grade the Sharks\u2019 offseason? It appears as if the Sharks don\u2019t have too much left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,11778,85],"class_list":["post-9998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sharks-analysis","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9998","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=9998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}