What the Sharks would be getting in Ivar Stenberg at No. 2 in the NHL Draft

The San Jose Sharks are drafting Ivar Stenberg with the No. 2 pick on Friday, right?

The Sharks’ move to acquire the No. 9 pick from the Ottawa Senators for William Eklund provided general manager Mike Grier the option to take Stenberg, widely considered to be second-best player in the draft, at No. 2, and either use that second top-10 selection to draft a defenseman or use it in trade to get more immediate help for a substandard blue line. The trade also ended any thought of the Chicago Blackhawks trying to acquire the No. 2 pick, as the Blackhawks went on to trade their No. 4 pick for defenseman Bowen Byram.

If you connect the dots, it sure seems as though Stenberg, who starred as an 18-year-old in Sweden, is San Jose-bound. Grier wasn’t so sure everyone should jump to the conclusion.

“First of all, you guys are all speculating,” Grier said Wednesday in a call with reporters. “Nothing’s decided about our board, how we have them and how we lined up. As far as Ivar goes, he’s a competitive kid. Sees the ice well, competes hard. Dual threat. Pretty comfortable playing against men already and had a historic season.”

With three first-round picks — San Jose also holds the No. 27 selection — Grier has been busy fielding offers in what is already a turbocharged trade market. He’s also looking to put any of those picks on the trade table for a player – most likely an impact defenseman who preferably fits the Byram profile in age and talent level – that can be a long-term piece for a Sharks team on the rise.

For instance, the No. 9 pick has resulted in many more calls, along with what Grier said were two more inquiries on the No. 2 pick, including “one that’s real interesting.”

“Yeah, it’s picked up,” Grier said. “I think teams are curious to what our plan was to do with 9. We had a few teams reach out and express some interest in it and what we’d be looking for. Now that we have 9, I think a couple teams reached out on 2 again. All stuff for us to consider.

“We still have a couple days to get our board right and then see what the day brings as we go along here this week.”

With many options, the Sharks may be the most interesting team ahead of the draft. Will they take Stenberg? Grier called him “a very talented player.” But, perhaps intentionally, he kept the door open for the Sharks to go in another direction, saying “6-(foot-)3, right-shot D who can skate and create offense don’t grow on trees either.”

It was an obvious allusion to Michigan State-bound Chase Reid, who is the consensus top defenseman in this draft. Or it could have been about the pool of right-handed shots that include North Dakota’s Keaton Verhoeff or Denver commit Daxon Rudolph, either of whom could potentially be available to San Jose at No. 9.

But if Stenberg is the choice at No. 2, the winger will join a Sharks forward group overflowing in offensive talent. Franchise star Macklin Celebrini already has a skilled running mate on the wing in Will Smith and is backed up at center by Michael Misa, last year’s No. 2 pick. The ascent of Igor Chernyshov as a top-six scorer and the prospect of drafting Stenberg essentially made Eklund expendable.

Wherever Stenberg might potentially enter the Sharks’ lineup, he’s likely to fit right in, as his Frölunda coach Robert Ohlsson explained about Stenberg’s ability this week.

“Decision-making is what stands out with this kid,” Ohlsson said. “He can really read a game. He can play it in slow tempo. I would say, he can control the tempo. (There are) maybe not so many players who can control the temple like he does. He can like lower it a little bit and then he can go uptempo and stuff like that. … He reads the situation before he goes into the situation. That’s maybe what stands out most with him. He never really gets hit so much or never has his eyes down on the ice. He always scanning, scanning and read where he’s got his teammates and where he’s got the opponents.”

Stenberg may not be the most skilled player in the 2026 draft — that designation likely goes to Gavin McKenna — but Stenberg is probably the most intelligent player.

“Those top, top players, they have it,” said Sweden national coach Sam Hallam, who coached Stenberg at the World Championships in May.”The just find a way to be in the right spot and make the right decision.  Speaking to the people around him in Frölunda in Gothenburg and hearing what they say that see from him every day, like they rank him so high in all aspects of the game. So I would say I’m more impressed than surprised because I’ve heard it. But I think he’s that kind of player, that tier-one player, that they just find a way. They have a sense that I can’t teach probably.”

Stenberg won over all his coaches in that respect this season. With Frölunda, his 33 points in 43 games were the most by an under-19 player in the SHL since brothers Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin in the late 1990s. In the World Junior Championship, he produced a team-high 10 points in seven games to help Sweden win the gold. In the World Championships, he had eight points in eight games for Sweden.

Against his peers in the World Juniors, against men in the SHL and against NHLers in the World Championships, Stenberg proved himself time after time, even if it takes him some time to get where he needs to be.

“It’s fun with Ivar because sometimes he comes out a bit slow in the games, just feeling the level,” Hallam said. “I think it was sometimes the same in the World Championships where he came out like, OK, which level is this game played at and then he kind of adapts. I would say that he always played his best game like in the third period. That’s also something that impresses me, kind of where the game is on the line and, all of a sudden, he just raises his level, wins a couple pucks, wins a couple of battles, creates some time, finds some space.”

Stenberg’s size — 5-11 and 183 pounds — has been noted by some draft pundits as a potential hurdle for him in the NHL. Hallam thought Stenberg’s defense was underrated and even good enough to get him time on the penalty kill.

Where Ohlsson thought Stenberg needed work was on being more selfish.

“I was always on him a little bit about taking the shots because maybe he looks for the extra pass,” Ohlsson said. “I said to him, if you really want to be effective on the way you play the game, I think you need to maybe have a little more goal-scoring mentality. You’re going to get your extra points and a little of that if you take the shots And for sure, if you go to the smaller rink like it is in North American NHL, I think you benefit more if you take the shots a little bit little bit more. If he cab combine his great vision and his passing game with a goal-scoring mentality, he would be a really, really, really top player, for sure.”

Stenberg is likely to jump into the NHL next season. Ohlsson doesn’t expect him back. Where Stenberg will be playing in the NHL next season is the unknown until Friday.

“I’m going to follow it,” Ohlsson said. “I guess it’s No. 1 or No. 4. We’ll see. I have no idea. I think it’s great players who are up there, so it’s going to be a tough one. We’ll see.”

It’d be surprising if it isn’t the Sharks, but we shall see.