Speculation: 2023-24-25 Sharks Roster Discussion

[vortexy]

Chris Johnston of the Athletic, with some high praise for us when he answered a mailbag question from a subscriber:

If you were hired today to be the GM of one team for the next 10 years, which team would you pick? (Keep in mind that you wouldn’t get credit for any championships your team wins in the first couple of years because you didn’t construct the roster.) — Darn it! D.

Man, this is a tough question. And a good one. After much deliberation, I’m choosing to take over the San Jose Sharks because they tick every box you’d want in the early stages of a rebuild. Most importantly they’ve got solid and stable ownership, plus a nice crop of young players and prospects in the pipeline. There’s also a reasonably clear salary cap sheet to operate with and plenty of draft capital stashed in the cupboards. All that said, Mike Grier is the main reason the Sharks are set up so well, so I can’t imagine they’ll be looking for a new GM in San Jose any time soon!

 

[Sharksfan66]

3C is super optimistic for Bystedt at this point. We should be pleasantly surprised if he gets 200 NHL games.

22 points in 38 AHL games in D+3 is pretty weak. Forwards who make the NHL in top-9 scoring roles are usually doing a lot better at that point.

Can you say more about Bystedt beyond his point production?

Because to be clear, I haven’t had a chance to watch Bystedt for myself, but just to engage with your points-based argument

 Bystedt is at .67 PPG in his D+3 season so far. For comparison:

Phillip Danault scored at .36 his D+3 season.

Adam Lowry scored at .52 PPG

Lars Eller at .71 PPG


William Karlsson hadn’t even made the jump to NA full time yet. By the time he did in his D+4 season, he scored at .46 PPG in the AHL.

Gosh, even Cirelli was only at .73 PPG his D+3 year.

So I look at his production and think he sure looks like he's right on track to be a really solid 3C at this level. But I assume there are things I would be seeing if I was watching him play beyond the points? Could you tell us about that?

 

[one2gamble]

Most importantly they’ve got solid and stable ownership

our owner is like 90, its stable for a few more moments

 

[TheBeard]

We are worse defensively this year then we were last year at this point of the season.

We are better offensively, and every one knows that Ferraro especially does not affect that aspect of the game.

We are not worse defensively, we just no longer have decent goaltending.

 

[Star Platinum]

Based on what?

As a point of comparison, Ty Dellandrea in his D+4 season scored 50 points in 68 games in the AHL. He then scored 28 points in 82 games with Dallas the following year. On the Sharks with untalented teammates on mostly the bottom 6 lines, he's scored 6 points in 43 games.

Bystedt has scored 22 points in 38 games for the Barracuda in his D+3 season and first full season in the AHL. Even if he has a large increase in scoring next year in the AHL, he's not tracking to be much of an impact player at the NHL level. I can't speak to his off-puck and defensive capabilities, but he doesn't look to be someone to be getting that excited about. If he ends up being a cheap capable checking center, that's probably a win for him at this point.

 

[Cas]

Can you say more about Bystedt beyond his point production?

Because to be clear, I haven’t had a chance to watch Bystedt for myself, but just to engage with your points-based argument

 Bystedt is at .67 PPG in his D+3 season so far. For comparison:

Phillip Danault scored at .36 his D+3 season.

Adam Lowry scored at .52 PPG

Lars Eller at .71 PPG


William Karlsson hadn’t even made the jump to NA full time yet. By the time he did in his D+4 season, he scored at .46 PPG in the AHL.

Gosh, even Cirelli was only at .73 PPG his D+3 year.

So I look at his production and think he sure looks like he's right on track to be a really solid 3C at this level. But I assume there are things I would be seeing if I was watching him play beyond the points? Could you tell us about that?

I think you'd actually have to be looking at all centers' scoring at similar levels in their D+3 seasons in the AHL, see what percentage of those succeeded, and then look at what they have in common, rather than looking at a selection of successful NHL centers and seeing how they scored.

I would guess that very few centers scoring at a .67 PPG pace in the AHL in their D+3 season turn into NHL regulars, but I don't have a huge data set available. I would also guess that, out of that set, big centers with high draft pedigree, like Bystedt, are more likely to succeed than smaller centers drafted in later rounds (because lower draft picks are probably because those players did not appear to have as many potentially NHL-quality tools).

I was always under the impression that Bystedt's realistic ceiling was decent 3C, and that the most likely outcomes were bust (not an NHL regular on a good team), followed by bottom six forward (so more realistically a 4C). If we get a 3C, like a Wennberg, great; if we get a 4C, like a Sturm, or bottom six faceoff-capable winger, like a Goodrow, then we've basically met expectations.

 

[JoeThorntonsRooster]

Can you say more about Bystedt beyond his point production?

Because to be clear, I haven’t had a chance to watch Bystedt for myself, but just to engage with your points-based argument

 Bystedt is at .67 PPG in his D+3 season so far. For comparison:

Phillip Danault scored at .36 his D+3 season.

Adam Lowry scored at .52 PPG

Lars Eller at .71 PPG


William Karlsson hadn’t even made the jump to NA full time yet. By the time he did in his D+4 season, he scored at .46 PPG in the AHL.

Gosh, even Cirelli was only at .73 PPG his D+3 year.

So I look at his production and think he sure looks like he's right on track to be a really solid 3C at this level. But I assume there are things I would be seeing if I was watching him play beyond the points? Could you tell us about that?

Cas said it better than I could; I’ll just add that this is a great example of selection bias.

If you know of a guy who scored like this, you probably know of him because he made it. You don’t know all the guys who scored like this and didn’t make it, precisely because they didn’t make it. But there are actually a lot more of them.

I’m not pretending I’ve been watching him play, so there’s no need to be condescending on that front. But the production is very discouraging. It’s not a complete death sentence, as your counterexamples show, but it is absolutely dearth enough that it would be wise to just trade him and Thrun for two (!!!) late 1st round picks.

 

[Hodge]

Danault, Lowry and Eller (in his prime) are/were also elite defensive Cs and that's never been Bystedt's game. Maybe he can develop into one, he has the size and speed to do it, but right now he's more of a puck-carrying transition forward with good hands in front of the net.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

And so can every other team. If we'd claimed him and given him the minutes he deserves, he probably re-signs.

Low-key feeling like passing on Fabbro is Grier's worst move this season other than claiming [redacted].

Maybe but maybe he sees how difficult the losing has been for some guys here and still looks for a better opportunity. Him finding his game elsewhere before hitting free agency is probably better for our odds of having him play here long term.

If we were at the same goal differential at this point with the roster improvement as we were last year it would have been a disaster, so yeah it could have been worse.

It still would be last and Ferraro still is replaceable through it all.

 

[Sharksfan66]

Cas said it better than I could; I’ll just add that this is a great example of selection bias.

If you know of a guy who scored like this, you probably know of him because he made it. You don’t know all the guys who scored like this and didn’t make it, precisely because they didn’t make it. But there are actually a lot more of them.

I’m not pretending I’ve been watching him play, so there’s no need to be condescending on that front. But the production is very discouraging. It’s not a complete death sentence, as your counterexamples show, but it is absolutely dearth enough that it would be wise to just trade him and Thrun for two (!!!) late 1st round picks.

No condescension intended. I thought you were one of the folks out of here who made hockey fandom into a career, so I figured you had watched him, but I may be confusing you with someone else.

Anyway, I personally find yours & @Cas ’ analysis underwhelming. I went through and looked up every true 3C I could think of (read: not just playing on the 3rd line today, a la Jordan Stall or Kunin) and I couldn’t find one example that scored and a significantly higher rate in their D+3 season. I get what you were saying about selection bias, but in the absence of data, it doesn’t do much to move the conversation forward. Can you think of any true 3Cs in the league today who scored at a significantly higher rate in their D+3 year? Or maybe some recent centers who scored at a similar rate in their D+3 season and busted? (Again, not trying to be antagonistic here, just trying to understand where you’re coming from. We’re all Sharks fans here )

 

[Barrie22]

We are not worse defensively, we just no longer have decent goaltending.

.899, 3.45
.895, 3.45

Vs

.911, 3.00
.896, 3.10
.876, 4.01
.875, 4.01

We have had better goaltending for 19 of 57 games.

 

[Cas]

No condescension intended. I thought you were one of the folks out of here who made hockey fandom into a career, so I figured you had watched him, but I may be confusing you with someone else.

Anyway, I personally find yours & @Cas ’ analysis underwhelming. I went through and looked up every true 3C I could think of (read: not just playing on the 3rd line today, a la Jordan Stall or Kunin) and I couldn’t find one example that scored and a significantly higher rate in their D+3 season. I get what you were saying about selection bias, but in the absence of data, it doesn’t do much to move the conversation forward. Can you think of any true 3Cs in the league today who scored at a significantly higher rate in their D+3 year? Or maybe some recent centers who scored at a similar rate in their D+3 season and busted? (Again, not trying to be antagonistic here, just trying to understand where you’re coming from. We’re all Sharks fans here )

I'm not analyzing, I was more summarizing someone else's thoughts.

I do think you can't just look at the players who succeeded - you have to look at the entire sample, in this case of D+3 centers playing in the AHL (and maybe the other top-level foreign pro leagues), see who was scoring at what rates, and see how scoring at various rates translated into success in the NHL. Right now, you're working backwards and assuming that Bystedt will succeed (that may not be how you are thinking about this, but that is exactly what your math works out to in practice).

The best way to do this is probably to take everyone in the AHL from, say, 2012-2022, grab all of the centers in their D+3 season, sort them by scoring rate (normalized to a common reference frame), find the ones in the 0.50-0.75 range, and see how many succeeded.

 

[Sharksfan66]

Danault, Lowry and Eller (in his prime) are/were also elite defensive Cs and that's never been Bystedt's game. Maybe he can develop into one, he has the size and speed to do it, but right now he's more of a puck-carrying transition forward with good hands in front of the net.

I thought the idea was he seemed to have the tools necessary to develop a solid defensive game at the pro level, the question was if his offense could translate. Kind of a Sturm as a floor and an Eller as a ceiling. Sounds like that may not be the case?

 

[OrrNumber4]

Anyway, I personally find yours & @Cas ’ analysis underwhelming. I went through and looked up every true 3C I could think of (read: not just playing on the 3rd line today, a la Jordan Stall or Kunin) and I couldn’t find one example that scored and a significantly higher rate in their D+3 season. I get what you were saying about selection bias, but in the absence of data, it doesn’t do much to move the conversation forward. Can you think of any true 3Cs in the league today who scored at a significantly higher rate in their D+3 year? Or maybe some recent centers who scored at a similar rate in their D+3 season and busted? (Again, not trying to be antagonistic here, just trying to understand where you’re coming from. We’re all Sharks fans here )

The only Sharks forward draftees I can think of who had underwhelming D+3 seasons outside of the NHL, but turned into decent talent are Clowe and Coyle. If only Filip changed his surname to Cyste...