their prospect pool the second-best in the NHL<\/a> behind only Chicago\u2019s \u2014\u00a0they have plenty of options.<\/p>\nThe safest play is to go with the (nearly) consensus second-best player in the draft, Swedish winger Ivar Stenberg. Stenberg has been holding his own against men in the Swedish league for two years now, posting 11 goals and 22 assists in 43 games with Frolunda this past season. He could jump right into a top-line role alongside Celebrini and Smith, creating a super-line for years to come. Or he could slot in next to Misa on the second line, giving the Sharks two highly dangerous lines.<\/p>\n
Grier has seen plenty of both McKenna and Stenberg, and likes them both.<\/p>\n
\u201cDynamic with the puck. They\u2019re both shoot\/pass threats, which is not always the case with young players,\u201d he said. \u201cBut there\u2019s playmaking and vision on both of them. They think the game well and at a high level and are a threat to create scoring chances every shift. Very talented players and they\u2019re exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the Sharks are pretty loaded up front. Besides Celebrini, Misa and Smith, they have William Eklund, the No. 7 pick in 2021, and promising 20-year-old winger Igor Chernyshov. Grier also traded for and extended the contract of veteran winger Kiefer Sherwood last season for some depth scoring. You can never have enough goal-scorers, but it\u2019s not as if winger is a huge position of need in San Jose. And with 23-year-old Jaroslav Askarov in net and 19-year-old Joshua Ravensbergen waiting in the wings, they\u2019re pretty well set at goalie, too.<\/p>\n
So might Grier shake up the draft and pick a defenseman? Vancouver, which dropped from No. 1 to No. 3 in the lottery and covets a center such as Caleb Malhotra, and Chicago, which dropped from No. 2 to No. 4 and is desperate for a winger such as Stenberg to play with Connor Bedard, certainly hope so. While McKenna and Stenberg are at the top of most scouting lists, this is a defense-heavy top 10.<\/p>\n
And the Sharks need defensemen. Sam Dickinson, the No. 11 pick in 2024, had a solid rookie season in San Jose, with 14 points in 72 games. Eric Pohlkamp and Luca Cagnoni are intriguing prospects, but hardly can\u2019t-miss. And the rest of the blue line is loaded with stopgap veterans such as Dmitry Orlov, John Klingberg, Nick Leddy and Mario Ferraro.<\/p>\n
So perhaps Prince George\u2019s Carson Carels, Sault Ste. Marie\u2019s Chase Reid or the University of North Dakota\u2019s Keaton Verhoeff fits their needs better. Typically a team bad enough to pick second just focuses on the best player available, but San Jose is well into its talent-hoarding phase and perhaps could be a little, well, pickier.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s another, whatever it is, six weeks before the draft, so we\u2019ll dig into it,\u201d Grier said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re picking at the top of the draft, you always try and go with the best player available. I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to pass \u2014\u00a0if there\u2019s a big gap between two players or two positions \u2014\u00a0we\u2019re not going to take a player just for need in that situation. We\u2019ve got to do our homework, dig into it, and most likely we\u2019ll take who we feel is the best fit and the best available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the most tantalizing possibility of all \u2014 a trade. This offseason is shaping up to be something unlike we\u2019ve ever seen before, as the rising salary cap has all but killed free agency. The top pending unrestricted free agents are defenseman Darren Raddysh, who had a monster breakout season at age 30 with the Lightning, and a bunch of older veterans such as Alex Tuch, John Carlson and Anthony Mantha. With so many teams looking to add this summer, it opens the door to some blockbuster trades. If Dallas\u2019 Jim Nill is wary of giving RFA Jason Robertson a cap hit similar to Mikko Rantanen\u2019s $12-million one, would he be willing to part with a 26-year-old three-time 40-goal scorer for the No. 2 pick, a chance to replenish his prospect pool after years of win-now trades? Are St. Louis\u2019 Robert Thomas or Toronto\u2019s Matthew Knies really available? Could Edmonton\u2019s Darnell Nurse be had?<\/p>\n
Or maybe the Blackhawks covet Stenberg enough to package the No. 4 pick with one of their three 2027 first-rounders in order to move up to No. 2. Trades like that happen all the time in the NFL, particularly when a team needs a quarterback, but they\u2019re a lot less common in the NHL. Maybe the dearth of game-changing free agents will alter that mindset.<\/p>\n
Keep in mind, San Jose also has Edmonton\u2019s first-round pick this year. A lot can happen with that much draft capital.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if (moving up to No. 2) makes (a trade) unlikely, but it\u2019s obviously a different price tag trading the ninth pick, what you might be asking for, or (moving) the second pick, what your ask would be,\u201d Grier said. \u201cThat\u2019s probably the part of the equation that changes. We\u2019ll see. We\u2019ll see if anything comes our way, but I\u2019m open to listening.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a league with a handful of great teams, a handful of full-blown rebuilds and a whole mess of teams trying to figure out just what they are and just what their path forward is, the Sharks already were in an enviable position. They have a generational talent leading the way in Celebrini and a host of other young talented players. Now the No. 2 pick has fallen in their lap. They were maybe the last team in the lottery that needed a top-two pick, but they\u2019re certainly happy to have it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no secret here,\u201d Grier said when asked if he had a good-luck charm. \u201cI wish there was a good story behind it. But we\u2019re just very fortunate and lucky that things have gone our way to be able to pick at the top of the draft here. Happy to have the balls bounce our way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Imagine what it must have felt like to be a Detroit Red Wings fan watching the NHL draft…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,835,99],"class_list":["post-632627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}