The sharks development staff this year has not been great.
1. Smith playing 4th line mins or riding the pine in the NHL is not good: either play him a ton despite being -100 and 0 for 2000 in the circle (touch of hyperbole), or send him down.
2. bringing up your 22 year old AHL leading scorer and NHL preaseason point leader only to plop him for 10 mins on the fourth line then bench him two game is not good.
3. Musty holding out and not playing and not working on the defensive side of the puck and the play away from the puck is not good.
4. Cherny not getting surgery earlier so he could play earlier is not good.
5. Even having Thompson, one of your top young D prospects, called up only to sit in the press box and not play is not good.
They might as well call up askarov and have him specialize in bench opening and bench pressing goals.
Im disappointed with the way the sharks have been dvelping their top prospets early in the year. I can assume injuries to mukh and celly were handled as well as possible, but I don't trust it in Celly's case. Did he aggravate something in game one that they knew about? Was playing him a stupid move?
it also feels like Grier and War are not on the same page.
P.s>: 5M per year (10M total) for wennberg!? What a moronic move by grier. Almost the same money as toffoli AAV. We could actually be a fun team with 1 or 2 more toffoli's and a healthy celebrini.
Oh yeah, the goal isnt winning according to many here. Guess that explains spending $15-20M per year on bottom feeders. Grier has done a nice job drafting and a nice job trading. But aside from toffoli (which I supported form the start), his UFA signings are unfathomably poopy.
1. Smith needs to earn his minutes. This is the NHL. Without Granlund on his line as a safety blanket, Smith isn't playable yet during vast stretches of close games.
2. Change the channel already. Enough about Gushchin. We're talking about someone whose best case scenario is developing into Kevin Labanc 2.0 except that he's well behind Labanc at the same age.
3. Musty is presumably holding out in order to be traded to a team that will help him improve his play away from the puck.
4. We signed Chernyshov in August. When was he supposed to get the surgery?
5. Thompson is not a "prospect" he's just a guy. Good in the AHL, not good in the NHL, unlikely to develop much further at 22.
Bizarre to complain about the Wennberg contract after he just had a great game centering what's been our most consistent line.
Our goal this season is to integrate Celebrini and Smith into the lineup but also to not give up 10 goals on back to back nights and continue being the laughing stock of the league. Investing all that money in Wennberg, Goodrow, Dellandrea and Grundstrom is helping in that regard. Signing more Toffolis instead would have replicated last season's mishmash of one-way offensive wingers like Duclair, Hoffman, Barabanov and Labanc. It's only been three games but I like what I'm seeing a lot more this year.