This could be the best draft in sharks history. However, that's not that hard when you are given the #1 pick, and trade away all your good players.
Grier has made an army of bad moves/signings since he came. He did well dumping the bad contracts for the most part, but he also used much of that savings up to now on absolute garbarge. Kunin, sturm, lindbom, Buroughs, Benning, G Smith, and co have been absolute garbarge for the money they cost and they all came not as salary dumps like Hoffman but as his own signings. Quinn to coach was also just horrific. I am not a fan of warsofsky either, though I hope im wrong there.
Walman trade is reasonable for the 2nd rounder (love the LSW pick!), but the goodrow play was horrific. Adding a 3.4M 4th liner who doesnt want to be here and getting nothing in return?? very strange...
Time will tell, but so far, Grier has not added anything of quality. It feels like he is resigned to giving up another year, possibly two, at the very bottom. Any GM can build a great farm if they suck for long enough. Pens did it. They sucked year after year and acquired top picks like sid/malkin/fluery/Whitney/Staal as top five picks 5 years in a row. Thats not amazing GM work. that's prolonged sucking.
A great GM would see this summer and next summer as the chance to deploy big cap on quality vets. Now that the draft is over, they can pencil in Eklund, Zetterlund, Smith, Celebrini, Graf, and likely two of Musty/Haltunnen/ Bystedt/Edstrom/CHernyshov/Afansyev/Guschkin/Bordy/other to be in the linup. That's likely 7 to 9 forward roster spots filled over the next 2 years and for the foreseeable future. That means they need 3 top end free agent forwards to fill out the forward roster forever. Figure 7M per = 21M of additional cap for forwards.
On D: Dickinson and Mukh are likely. Thrun perhaps too. Here is where the sharks need to invest in FA's or trades. figure signing 3 good vet D for 7M per and thats 21M too.
Thats 42M in added cap space for 3 top line vet forwards and 3 top line vet D.
The rest of the forwards are the aforementioned ones that sum up to just 10-20M total mostly on ELCs.
The D too would be largely ELC/Filler and cost just 5M.
Add in 6M for goaltending and your total cap hit is just 72M (not including Vlasic or Granny who are short term fillers)
This is why I think its time now for grier to start bringin in high end vets in their late 20's for 7 year deals. They wont be able to add this much UFA talent in one summer. They need to start accumulating quality vet guys now in my opinion. Having an army of ELCs is a massive boon but its completely wasted the talent you bring in is Walman and Goodrow. They dont have to tank again and waste the first year of smith and eklund and graf's seocnd ELC year and possibly Mack's first ELC year too. Losing those super cheap years with a garbage roster that tanks hurts. Put in the quality guys and lets shoot to make Playoffs this year.
We have a cupboard stocked enough, lets get some wins!