Speculation: 2023-24-25 Sharks Roster Discussion

Grinner

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May 31, 2022
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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?
 

OverTheLine

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May 11, 2011
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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.
 
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Grinner

Registered User
May 31, 2022
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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.
I can think of no better metric for a GM 's success, than championships. 16 years was it?
Yes, he kept us competitive and ownership happy by not losing money and keeping fannies in the seats.
And yes. It's an entertainment business first and foremost.
 

OverTheLine

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May 11, 2011
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I can think of no better metric for a GM 's success, than championships. 16 years was it?
Yes, he kept us competitive and ownership happy by not losing money and keeping fannies in the seats.
And yes. It's an entertainment business first and foremost.
Like I said, it's just my personal perspective. I think that championships in hockey are more strongly determined by luck (puck bounces, injuries, ups and downs of shooting percentages) than other sports, so I think using it as a metric to gauge an executive's success feels weird to me.

Separate from the championship issue, the fact that DW saw us a couple wins away from a cup with basically no lottery picks during his tenure is mind-bogglingly crazy, and much more indicative of GM talent and acumen than getting a #1 by virtue of the cosmic benevolence of a ping pong ball and then drafting someone like Sidney Crosby or Connor McDavid. It doesn't take any managerial skill to do that, just the fortune of the gods. Winning so much for so long by virtue of trades and personnel decisions is a much stronger reflection, IMO, of DW's ability as a manager. Not to say I think he was perfect or anything. Just that I think he was a very, very good executive, perhaps one of the best of his generation, who unfortunately never got the final win.

Would you similarly take issue with me saying Thornton is an excellent player? His cupboard is equally bare.
 
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