It's year two for both Mike Grier and David
Quinn, but things are sizing up to look a lot like last season. Grier is still
handcuffed by the slew of bad contracts he inherited when he took over the
Sharks GM role in the summer of 2022 and he's spent the last 15 months trying
to create an opportunity to actually start rebuilding the franchise. Not an
easy task. From an outside perspective it may look as if he's done little in
terms of adding the pieces the Sharks need to be competitive, but the mess that
he's trying to clean up is a multi-year endeavor which is more than quick fix.
The downside is, San Jose won't be making much of a splash in 2023-24.
It's too easy to simply say the Sharks are going to be bad, so rather than
simply dumping more criticism on the dumpster fire that is San Jose, why not
simply try to predict what we'll see this season.
Youth Movement
& Growing Pains It's no secret that the Sharks have a handful
of young talent that is trying to develop and make their way in the NHL. This
will be the season that they actually get their chance. The NHL is not a day
care mind you, so there will be some growing pains. Look for the Sharks to move
youngsters like William Eklund, Thomas Bordeleau and Henry Thrun up and down
between the big club and their top affiliate, the San Jose Barracuda.
Movement between the NHL and AHL is not a condemnation or death sentence for a
young player. Hopefully the Sharks are preparing these players for the reality
that they will stumble along the way and a trip to the AHL can be a good thing.
Confidence above all is the one thing the Sharks must nurture with their core
group of youngsters.
Eklund just turned 21 and his upside is something
the Sharks will need to protect at all costs. Bordeleau gave Sharks fans lots
to be hopeful for with his performance in the preseason. Thrun used his
collegiate experience to shore up his game and he's looking like a seasoned
veteran on the ice.
All is good when it comes to what roles these
young players can play in the Sharks rebuild, but fans need to be patient. They
will struggle. They will make mistakes. San Jose will need to continue to
nurture this group if they want to get full value out of them down the road.
Hertl's Last Stand Shark fans had to endure the pain
and suffering that goes along with the exodus of key players. The Timo Meier
and Erik Karlsson trades are painful reminders that professional sports doesn't
care about fan loyalties. Those were key pieces that San Jose had to exchange
for rebuild capital that they can parlay at the right time.
Grier has
the unfortunate task of trying to rebuild the franchise while also trying to
retain some paying customers. Retaining centerpiece players helps address the
latter, but at what cost. What's the point of retaining a high priced veteran
if you really have little shot at being competitive in the near term.
That question really comes in to focus on a pair of Sharks mainstays. Captain
Logan Couture and forward Tomas Hertl are two guys that command a pretty penny
and have the name recognition for that bubble fan who may or may not choose to
spend a few bucks on Shark tickets.
In Couture's case, he's publicly
stated that he wants to remain a Shark for the duration of his career. The
motivation to retain him is largely centered around his ability to lead the
locker room and to teach the youngsters how to be professionals. Focusing back
on the things the Sharks need to do to evolve their young players, someone
needs to show them how to do it right. Couture is the best guy to do that.
Thrun can follow Marc-Edouard Vlassic's lead, but the reality there is
that Vlasic is really in the sunset of his career and the Sharks will need to
shed his debilitating contract at some point. Buying it out is really the only
way that happens.
So what about Hertl. It all comes down to what kind
of performance San Jose will get out of him. The Sharks are hoping he has a big
season, because that will pump up his trade value. His contract has 6 more
years on it at $8.13 million per. That accounts for more than 10% of the Sharks
cap hit this season.
If Hertl can produce and market himself as a
commodity, the Sharks will jump at moving his contract this season.
Don't Blame Mackenzie Like last season, the Sharks biggest issue
will be keeping the puck out of their own net. Grier didn't break the bank
rounding out his blueline when he signed Kyle Burroughs, acquired Jan Rutta via
trade and picked up Ty Emberson via a waiver claim.
The only thing
Grier did to get better defensively was to send Karlsson to Pittsburgh. When
you're improving by subtraction, it's going to be a long year.
New
goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood will take the brunt of the blame for the Sharks
impending defensive woes. It's unfair to expect any goaltender to stop pucks
without a solid defense in front of him, Adin Hill is a perfect example of
that.
The Sharks gave up on Hill because he couldn't keep pucks from
slipping past him. He gets traded to Vegas and goes on to play a pivotal role
in the Golden Knights run to a Stanley Cup Hill's struggles in San Jose were
attributed to the fact that his defensive counterparts did little to help him.
Blackwood will suffer the same fate and will unfairly be the fall guy
that fans will pile on.
It's not going to be good for his own
development, so it will be interesting to see how he handles the post game
media scrums. Will he have the maturity to answer the same burdensome questions
night after night. The consummate professional James Reimer was great at it,
and someone he survived.
Blackwood will need to take a page out of
Reimer's playbook when it comes to explaining why the Sharks lost by 2, 3, or
more goals each night.
Please Come Back The Sharks
marketing department (or overpaid consultants) are trying to motivate customers
to buy tickets with their "It's Time to Return to the Tank" pitch. It's a
cringe worthy message that calls out the fact that fans aren't there to begin
with.
The Sharks were second to last in average attendance last
season. One can argue that the only reason they weren't last is because the
team that holds that distinction, the Arizona Coyotes, played at Arizona State
University's facility which only holds 4,600 spectators.
That's not
likely to change if the markers are openly begging fans to come back in their
campaigns. The dollars spent on that messaging would have been better served in
providing every fan with an emotional support dog at the gate this season.
The prediction here is that the Sharks will dump that campaign as soon
as possible and shift their marketing dollars toward putting missing fan ads on
milk cartons.
It's going to be a long season, but there is the hope
that Grier has shown signs that he knows what he's doing. This is still a
multi-year endeavor and Grier is only a year into the project. They would be
best served to focus on developing their young core, refraining from overpaying
any more veterans and add pieces through the draft.
Until then, the
predictions will be painful.
