{"id":661663,"date":"2026-05-11T06:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/661663\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T06:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:09:11","slug":"sharks-matthews-klapka-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/661663\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharks, Matthews, Klapka \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

After jumping into the second overall selection from last week\u2019s draft lottery, the San Jose Sharks may capitalize on their luck by entertaining trade offers, outlined by The Fourth Period this morning<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With Toronto winning big last Tuesday<\/a>, dominating many of the headlines, somewhat cast aside was the Sharks moving up seven spots to #2. Picking in the top five in each of the last three years, including second overall last summer (Michael Misa<\/a>), the difference now is San Jose hardly needs another young forward in their pipeline, suddenly in win-now mode and past rebuild status. With Ivar Stenberg<\/a> the clear cut second best player overall, defensemen such as Chase Reid<\/a> and Keaton Verhoeff <\/a>could be more attractive based on needs, but a reach at second overall from a value perspective.\u00a0<\/p>\n

2026 draftees aside, the Sharks netted an asset which would land a haul of NHL-ready talent, especially on the back-end, from any team looking to move up and select Stenberg. Known to be seeking upgrades on the blueline this summer<\/a>, there\u2019s perhaps no better trade chip than the one they hadn\u2019t even expected to be holding today. As mentioned in the article above, GM Mike Grier<\/a> also shopped his top pick last year, not ending up dealing it. If that proves to be the case again, rivals may be forced to prepare to deal with Stenberg, as part of a downright scary forward group in years to come.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elsewhere across the league:<\/p>\n

In Friday\u2019s episode of the 32 Thoughts Podcast<\/a>, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet speculated that Auston Matthews<\/a> may wait until later in the summer to decide on his future, but from Toronto\u2019s behalf, they simply can\u2019t wait that long to get \u201can idea\u201d. Last week it was apparent<\/a> that the new John Chayka<\/a> regime had work to do to impress Matthews and ease his concerns on the team\u2019s contention chances in the future. Winning the 2026 draft\u2019s top selection is as good of a start as they could have hoped, but as Friedman notes, there\u2019s still plenty more to be done with trades and free agency. Signed for two more years at $13.25MM, Matthews\u2019 supposed \u201cdecision\u201d is an entirely other conversation, as to what could even happen if things were to go awry. Regardless, it\u2019s a major headline going into the off-season, and any moves Chayka will make will have Matthews\u2019 interests in mind.
\nCalgary Flames forward Adam Klapka<\/a> was a final cut from Team Czechia<\/a> at the 2026 IIHF World Championships. The 25-year-old was a member of last spring\u2019s team, where he recorded three points in five games. Coming up short of the Olympic team in February, a result of his lack of special teams ability, it was likely the same case for today\u2019s ruling. At 6\u20198\u201d, the winger was brute force in his first full NHL season, racking up 112 penalty minutes and finishing fourth in the league with 295 hits. The righty chipped in offensively from the fourth line as well, tallying 18 points across his 79 games. Signed through next season, he\u2019ll utilize the offseason to rest up from a long campaign where he more than doubled NHL appearances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After jumping into the second overall selection from last week\u2019s draft lottery, the San Jose Sharks may capitalize…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[244595,13156,49,762,48,764,82,158789,746],"class_list":["post-661663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-adam-klapka","tag-auston-matthews","tag-ca","tag-calgary-flames","tag-canada","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sports","tag-team-czechia","tag-toronto-maple-leafs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}