Speculation: 2022-23 Sharks Roster Discussion Part II

[one2gamble]

When Arizona was competing for a short burst a while ago, attendance was still an issue because of the ownership status. The Sharks suck and are seeing attendance issues without this sort of encouraging indifference point you're making. For the Sharks, losing will cause attendance issues regardless of how you get there and what you do in that time period.

Every team in the bay suffered attendance issues when the sucked short of maybe the niners. Nobody was at Giants games before they built a new stadium and got good again, The warriors werent selling out in Oakland when they sucked. Hockey is going ot be worse and worse off because of its reliance on attendance but this just happens in California.

Benning is prone to dumb mistakes and can't seem to handle physicality, but he's very good at moving the puck, even under pressure. He's not super mobile but does pass very well.

we found merks ceiling!

 

[PacificOceanPotion]

I use to take issue with Hodges posts but I’ve since backtracked on that. He, or she, makes some really good points at times and other times you can tell is just flat out trolling. We have to have someone to challenge things and go against the grain. Maintains a balance. Makes for what could be good debates.

 

[Hodge]

Lol, like all those great players we signed with cap space from the Burns trade? Also, you literally ridiculed everyone who questioned Grier for not taking on cap dumps earlier this year in exchange for extra picks, now you're saying the Sharks could do that as a way of supporting a Karlsson trade? Which is it?

I only ridiculed people who complained about the Sharks not making the Sean Monahan trade that Montreal did. Taking on Monahan's full cap hit was always mathematically impossible regardless of how Grier spent the little cap space available to him.

Of course rebuilding teams should acquire cap dumps for draft picks when possible although it should be said these kinds of trades happen far less often in reality than in fans' imaginations. Cap dump trades in and of themselves are also not a realistic pathway to improvement. At best you're picking up another late 2nd round pick or two which are extremely unlikely to turn into anything. But of course it's better to have the lottery tickets than to not have them.

The guys on pace for over or near a point per game are the problem, but sure Lorentz, Benning and Sturm are "home runs". Let me ask you this, if Hertl, Couture and Karlsson are putting up the numbers they are, and all these bottom lineup players are "home runs", why is the team so awful? Sure, go ahead and tell me the guys on pace for 30-40 goals suck but the 3rd and 4th liners with a handful are amazing. Just like how Barabanov isn't an NHL player in your eyes.

Your blindness to the fact that Grier probably hasn't made a single good move following his draft day trade down from 11 is fairly impressive. I will accept signing Sturm as a decent move, but not a single other move has been a "win".

This team that is rostering all these bottom 6 studs is performing worse than last years with those AHL losers you speak of which was the argument made from many of us months ago. Signing or trading for the guys that Grier acquired doesn't move the needle for a team like the Sharks and it wasted cap space that could have been used to acquire dumps and extra draft picks. I'd much rather pay Gregor, Reedy or Dahlen under $1M to suck than pay Lindblom or Kunin closer to $3M to play slightly better. We are a bottom team chasing a top pick, who the hell cares whether we have AHL or NHL talent in the bottom 6. Get as many picks as you can and the best lottery odds you can get.

The NHL has had a hard salary cap for 17 years so it's remarkable you still don't seem to grasp that in order to be successful it's not enough to have good players or players earning their contracts. Just to seriously compete for a playoff spot, you need multiple players who provide massive surplus value relative to their cap hits along with very few or no players whose performance is significantly underwater relative to theirs. Grier inherited zero contracts of the former variety and a slew of the latter.

Even if Hertl, Couture and Karlsson have been more or less earning their cap hits so far this season it's not good enough when Meier is the only player you can reasonably argue is providing surplus value and you effectively have upwards of $15 million in dead money between Jones, Burns and overpays to Vlasic, Labanc, Simek and Ferraro. Grier is not responsible for any of that.

If you want to blame him for tacking on another $2 million of dead money by overpaying Lindblom that's fair but it's more than offset by how underpaid Benning is for his role and performance. After Meier, Benning might be the single biggest surplus value contract on the Sharks right now. At absolute worst the sum total of Grier's offseason moves were cap and value neutral. He never had the flexibility to acquire significant cap dumps thanks to the abject mess he inherited.

 

[Cas]

I use to take issue with Hodges posts but I’ve since backtracked on that. He, or she, makes some really good points at times and other times you can tell is just flat out trolling. We have to have someone to challenge things and go against the grain. Maintains a balance. Makes for what could be good debates.

You can't have debates or discussions with someone who does not argue in good faith. It's an utterly pointless exercise.

 

[hohosaregood]

I use to take issue with Hodges posts but I’ve since backtracked on that. He, or she, makes some really good points at times and other times you can tell is just flat out trolling. We have to have someone to challenge things and go against the grain. Maintains a balance. Makes for what could be good debates.

Disagree, Hodge is fundamentally right in all his arguments and there's no need for debate as his word is settled law.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Disagree, Hodge is fundamentally right in all his arguments and there's no need for debate as his word is settled law.

So can we just lock the forums and only have his posts be our beacon of hope?

 

[TheBeard]

Why does commenting on this site only work like 10% of the time?

offset by how underpaid Benning is for his role and performance

Stop the world. I wanna get off.

 

[OrrNumber4]

I only ridiculed people who complained about the Sharks not making the Sean Monahan trade that Montreal did. Taking on Monahan's full cap hit was always mathematically impossible regardless of how Grier spent the little cap space available to him.

Of course rebuilding teams should acquire cap dumps for draft picks when possible although it should be said these kinds of trades happen far less often in reality than in fans' imaginations. Cap dump trades in and of themselves are also not a realistic pathway to improvement. At best you're picking up another late 2nd round pick or two which are extremely unlikely to turn into anything. But of course it's better to have the lottery tickets than to not have them.


The NHL has had a hard salary cap for 17 years so it's remarkable you still don't seem to grasp that in order to be successful it's not enough to have good players or players earning their contracts. Just to seriously compete for a playoff spot, you need multiple players who provide massive surplus value relative to their cap hits along with very few or no players whose performance is significantly underwater relative to theirs. Grier inherited zero contracts of the former variety and a slew of the latter.

Even if Hertl, Couture and Karlsson have been more or less earning their cap hits so far this season it's not good enough when Meier is the only player you can reasonably argue is providing surplus value and you effectively have upwards of $15 million in dead money between Jones, Burns and overpays to Vlasic, Labanc, Simek and Ferraro. Grier is not responsible for any of that.

If you want to blame him for tacking on another $2 million of dead money by overpaying Lindblom that's fair but it's more than offset by how underpaid Benning is for his role and performance. After Meier, Benning might be the single biggest surplus value contract on the Sharks right now. At absolute worst the sum total of Grier's offseason moves were cap and value neutral. He never had the flexibility to acquire significant cap dumps thanks to the abject mess he inherited.

Hertl, Barabanov, and Megna too must be providing decent surplus value.

Also, to buttress your point about cap dumps, at the end of the day the team acquiring the dump is still paying out the real salary; that's going to be a hard pill for even spendthrift ownership to swallow. Spending what could amount to millions on a ho-hum lottery ticket is a big ask.

 

[stator]

Even if Hertl, Couture and Karlsson have been more or less earning their cap hits so far this season it's not good enough when Meier is the only player you can reasonably argue is providing surplus value and you effectively have upwards of $15 million in dead money between Jones, Burns and overpays to Vlasic, Labanc, Simek and Ferraro. Grier is not responsible for any of that.

That is why I'm not on the "dump on Grier" or "fire Grier" bandwagon. He deserves to be evaluated on what he does, rather than what DW did.

 

[Celly4Celebrini]

That is why I'm not on the "dump on Grier" or "fire Grier" bandwagon. He deserves to be evaluated on what he does, rather than what DW did.

this also isnt NHL 23. It is incredibly unreasonable to trade EVERYONE in an offseason. Theres 4-5 players (Vlasic, Couture, EK, Burns, Hertl/Meier) who at one point or another were believed it would be better if they were dealt, yet only Burns was because the GM simply cant unload everyone during a month like armchair GMs can in NHL

 

[Alaskanice]

this also isnt NHL 23. It is incredibly unreasonable to trade EVERYONE in an offseason. Theres 4-5 players (Vlasic, Couture, EK, Burns, Hertl/Meier) who at one point or another were believed it would be better if they were dealt, yet only Burns was because the GM simply cant unload everyone during a month like armchair GMs can in NHL

True. This is real life sports.

 

[Levie]

I'm becoming a doomer about this season. They aren't as bad as I hoped and I feel like it's going to be another year picking 5-8 in the draft. Absolute waste of this roster. Wish we stuck with Boughner as he was trending down in the lockerroom.

 

[hohosaregood]

I'm becoming a doomer about this season. They aren't as bad as I hoped and I feel like it's going to be another year picking 5-8 in the draft. Absolute waste of this roster. Wish we stuck with Boughner as he was trending down in the lockerroom.

You realize 5-8 is still a really good draft position. It's just not Bedard/Fantilli good. The mediocrity draft spot is like 12-16.

 

[Gecklund]

It’s really weird that people keep saying we will end up 5-8 when aren’t currently in that range and are in the 2-4 range and have played more games than most of the teams around us. It also sounds like they’re going to be at least listening on everyone so we will likely see some subtractions before the end of the season.

 

[Barrie22]

It’s really weird that people keep saying we will end up 5-8 when aren’t currently in that range and are in the 2-4 range and have played more games than most of the teams around us. It also sounds like they’re going to be at least listening on everyone so we will likely see some subtractions before the end of the season.

They expect other teams to get worst then we are, not that we will get better or anything.

But to be where we are right now we need a defensemen to get into very rare list of players by scoring so many goals in a certain games and points in certain games which is also still on pace for 100 points at the 30 game mark.

We also have 3 forwards that are on pace for 70+ points. If anything this team will get much worse then it is already even without any trades of the core.

 

[hohosaregood]

They expect other teams to get worst then we are, not that we will get better or anything.

But to be where we are right now we need a defensemen to get into very rare list of players by scoring so many goals in a certain games and points in certain games which is also still on pace for 100 points at the 30 game mark.

We also have 3 forwards that are on pace for 70+ points. If anything this team will get much worse then it is already even without any trades of the core.

If we refer to this point projection, there's 6 clear bottom feeders between SJ, ANA, CHI, ARZ, PHI, and CBJ. I think at worst, we end up at 6. I think CBJ, ANA, and ARZ are young teams that could improve over the course of the season, PHI will just tread water as they usually do, and CHI is probably going to get even worse as the season goes on. If SJ trades one or two of Couture, Meier, Karlsson then I can see us going into a freefall with CHI and end up with a top 3 pick. Otherwise, I'd expect 5 or 6.

 

[DG93]

If we refer to this point projection, there's 6 clear bottom feeders between SJ, ANA, CHI, ARZ, PHI, and CBJ. I think at worst, we end up at 6. I think CBJ, ANA, and ARZ are young teams that could improve over the course of the season, PHI will just tread water as they usually do, and CHI is probably going to get even worse as the season goes on. If SJ trades one or two of Couture, Meier, Karlsson then I can see us going into a freefall with CHI and end up with a top 3 pick. Otherwise, I'd expect 5 or 6.

That makes sense. Vancouver and Ottawa seem to have climbed out of the bottom-feeder tier. Buffalo and Montreal are staying out of it as well. I don't think St. Louis was ever really a tanker, and I doubt Nashville sinks into it either. It's really down to those 6 teams...Anaheim and Chicago are easily the worst, so I think they're locks for 2 of the bottom-3 seeds. We're really battling the other 3 for that last bottom-3 spot.

 

[mogambomoroo]

I really hope this is the year Sharks choose top 3, they really need it for the franchise! + Another pick at #1 round (Meier, Karlsson trade) from a trade, and couple of 2-3 round picks.

In reality can't afford to have just a mediocre season, need to really get to the bottom.

 

[Kcoyote3]

Would make sense the Sharks pick 5 given there are 4 legit names at the top.

 

[Juxtaposer]

There are five truly disgustingly bad teams in the NHL right now: Chicago, Anaheim, Columbus, Philadelphia, and Arizona. Hard to imagine us being able to tank worse than any of them over a full season unless Karlsson, Meier, and Hertl have significant injuries. I think we’ll end up with 6th overall, lottery notwithstanding.

 

[Gecklund]

There are five truly disgustingly bad teams in the NHL right now: Chicago, Anaheim, Columbus, Philadelphia, and Arizona. Hard to imagine us being able to tank worse than any of them over a full season unless Karlsson, Meier, and Hertl have significant injuries. I think we’ll end up with 6th overall, lottery notwithstanding.

Sharks are 1000% in that group.

 

[Cas]

Sharks are 1000% in that group.

Two of those teams have a better points percentage this far into the season. It's just not reasonable to describe the Sharks as anything but a lowly bottom feeder.

 

[Barrie22]

There are five truly disgustingly bad teams in the NHL right now: Chicago, Anaheim, Columbus, Philadelphia, and Arizona. Hard to imagine us being able to tank worse than any of them over a full season unless Karlsson, Meier, and Hertl have significant injuries. I think we’ll end up with 6th overall, lottery notwithstanding.

The sharks are this bad with a historic offensive season by karlsson and a point per game season by 2 others and another that is just under that type of season.

 

[Juxtaposer]

The sharks are this bad with a historic offensive season by karlsson and a point per game season by 2 others and another that is just under that type of season.

The Sharks are lucky to have as bad a record as they do.

I hope y’all are right, but I would put money on those five teams finishing below us unless we get some major injuries.

 

[Barrie22]

The Sharks are lucky to have as bad a record as they do.

I hope y’all are right, but I would put money on those five teams finishing below us unless we get some major injuries.

The sharks are lucky that the top 4 on this team are carrying the rest, those 4 have won atleast 2 or 3 games they should have lost and earned points in probably another 3 or 4.

And even then we are only 4 to 8 points ahead of the teams below us, with us playing 2 or 3 more games then 3 of 4 of them.

Everyone of the 4 that are carrying the team right now are also know to be very streaky where they can have very bad stretches of 10 to 20 games.