Speculation: 2023-24-25 Sharks Roster Discussion

[landshark]

He really gets up for every game

Good thing the game lasts less than four hours...

 

[Star Platinum]

I thought he got a bad sunburn.

He got burned so bad his arm fell right off his shoulder

 

[Jargon]

Chernyshov is the Shark in my icon, obviously.

 

[Grinner]

I like our wing prospects as much as the next guy, but wing is basically the easiest position to fill out with free agents and trades once the rebuild enters the compete stage. Defense is a much bigger challenge and the more chances to hit we have in our war chest the better.

Grier has already in many areas demonstrated himself to be a more astute GM than DW (whose unfortunate final stretch has had people underrate his overall career, which was excellent), but one area I'm not sure of is the blockbuster big game hunting in which DW was arguably the best GM in the league during his tenure. I'm not sure Grier is going to be able to pull Norris winners out of a Devin Setoguchi-shaped hat, so I'd rather we set ourselves up best we can to home grow a #1D even if it means gambling a good-bet winger in Musty for a not-so-sure thing in Jiricek.

How can you state DW was excellent. When the rafters are bare?

 

[Original22]

How can you state DW was excellent. When the rafters are bare?

How dare you disrespect the President's Trophy banner!

 

[ChompChomp]

How dare you disrespect the President's Trophy banner!

Is this banner still up there? I assume it is.

https://i0.wp.com/www.fearthefin.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2023/08/8_1_medium.jpg?w=640&ssl=1

 

[OverTheLine]

How can you state DW was excellent. When the rafters are bare?

It's a matter of perspective, I guess. Hockey is one of the highest variance of the popular spectator sports. Luck to a great degree determines a significant amount of outcomes in this sport.

The Sharks were among the winningest teams league-wide for the better part of the 2000s and 2010s years with an incredible playoff streak and five very deep playoff runs under his tenure (four conference finals, one SCF). That we didn't win it all is a very deep and bitter disappointment, but laying all the blame at DW's feet seems silly to me. At the end of the day, professional hockey is about entertainment and for years and years I got to watch extremely competitive hockey led by an all-time player acquired by DW in a masterstroke trade. He consistently put a competitive roster on the ice, and over the course of his GMing tenure it's hard to say more than four or five fanbases (Hawks, Penguins, Kings, and maybe the Bruins and Caps) were having a better time than us. There were dark spots, of course, and he had some serious failings (never getting a better goaltender than Nabakov, for instance), but the 2010s was an incredible decade of hockey for the Sharks and I think bad luck has as much to do with the lack of cups for us as any particular individual scapegoat. I feel the same way about blaming 'tin man' Thornton or 'gutless' Marleau.