GMMG's trades thus far?

[The McMafia]

Kinda feels like Grier's cultivating an opposite rep from DW. Like DW was "the dentist" but Grier seems like he'll work out a deal if there's something there.

DW was very, very good at taking advantage of other GM's mistakes to their full extent but that will dissuade those same GMs from making deals with you in the future.

At the end of the day all he cares about is making moves that makes this team better. All this talk about squeezing other GMs or bailing a team out doesn't mean squat to him. He simply doesn't care so long as the move(s) he makes benefit the on-ice product.

I think Grier is trying to build some goodwill across the league as part of the overall equation. Especially since he's new to the game.

Grier moved out the old guard to places where they had chances to succeed (Meier, Burns) while getting okay to good assets in return where possible. He has also helped out other teams with their cap issues (Ceci, Goodrow) while not trying to take them to the cleaners every time. That keeps the phones open.

If the org can draft consistently at a very good to excellent rate, winning or losing individual trades isn't going to matter very much in the long run. Just don't make critical mistakes in trades or FA.

 

[The McMafia]

Yes. You are correct. We could have had Stutzle and Norris... Of course you could also make a strange argument that the EK trade (and sign) is why we have dickinson in the system, but I digress....

In an alternate universe, it's all John Tavares's fault. If he had signed in 2019, the Karlsson trade doesn't happen and even if the team nosedived in 2020-2021, all of those Karlsson assets would have been available and maybe around today.

Correction: It is all Toronto's fault. They would have been better off now too!

 

[Gurglesons]

I know Grier gets a lot of shit for not maximizing value, but taking the team from where they were to finish in 2022 to where their prospect pool and future are today with Celebrini, Smith, Musty, Dickinson, and Askarov is honestly great work. With Burns’ retention falling off next year and then Vlasic out the year after that Sharks could easily be the team with the brightest future in the Pacific in two seasons.

 

[sampler]

I know Grier gets a lot of shit for not maximizing value, but taking the team from where they were to finish in 2022 to where their prospect pool and future are today with Celebrini, Smith, Musty, Dickinson, and Askarov is honestly great work. With Burns’ retention falling off next year and then Vlasic out the year after that Sharks could easily be the team with the brightest future in the Pacific in two seasons.

I completely agree, that Grier has done a solid job building the future. I am thrilled with the prospect pool, and the speed that he has built it. 2 years ago, we had eklund and a pile of poo poo. Now ,its 5-6 solid top 6/9 NHL quality forwards, at least 2-4 D, and a #1 G.

While building a farm is never easy, its a whole lot easier when you trade any semblance of veteran talent in your entire organization and you get a #1 and #4 overall pick to book as a result of historic ineptitude.

As I said earlier, the real test will be building, not tearing down. Celly was not GM talent. Neither was Smith. Dickinson had some GM talent moving up to #11 and some luck for him to fall. Chernyshov was alot of luck that he fell so far but the pick itself was also a result of historic ineptitude not gm skill. Musty looks like a great value pick, and that's good GM skill if he pans out. Jury still out on Bystedt, lund, and Havelid vs. Geekie (2022 trade back).

In short, how he adds pieces to build around the farm is going to be the key. I am beginning to have some faith in his ability to do that however. The Ceci and Askarov moves show that he is not reticent to pounce on an opportunity to add key pieces. He may not get "steals" but he is making overall sound moves, and I can forgive the past adds that were so bad (kunin, lindbom, etc), as they were low risk. I also like the askarov extension too. 2M is a very low risk number, and gives the sharks their potential number #1G for the next three years, while giving askarov an NHL paycheck and making him happy and motivated.

I am excited that the tear down is now complete, becasue I am excited to watch the "build" process unfold. Toffoli is the first longer term, bgger $ vet, and I like that play. I cant wait to watch the development this year at all levels and I think summer 2025 should be a major adding summer.

Damn the offseason feels SO long when youre out of playoff contention by november....

 

[Bizz]

DW had picks in the 1st round that were not dealt, they just didnt hit because its a much lower probability of hitting picking late. Mirco Mueller, Nicalay Goldobin, Ryan Merkley, Nick Petrecki, Jeremy Roy (1st pick in 2nd round), Ozzy Wiesbaltt... all first rounders(ish) that didnt pan out. Going into the 2nd round, the list is also very long (Kniazev, Bordy, Robins, Hamaliuk, Gambrell, Bergman, Rod, Boudreau, Wrenn, Doherty...)

So, you can argue that the drafting itself (not trading away, but the picking itself) was poor. I think thats very true expecially since 2016, and I think that contributed alot to where we are. is that on DW? yes, it is. So I will give you that, but I think its hard to pan gold consistently with such poor tools. Eventually, you are going to miss out alot.

This has more to do with the Sharks current situation over the last 4 years than anything else. DW in his later years had a tendency of trying to pick "safe" instead of swinging on a boom/bust pick and just ended up picking busts anyways, to almost everyone's dismay on these boards. Most of the first rounders he traded away didn't go on to become stars elsewhere either, with the exception of *maybe* Stutzle. Ironically two of the former first rounders traded away after they were picked ended up becoming decent (Coyle, Norris).

 

[TheBeard]

Celly was not GM talent. Neither was Smith. Dickinson had some GM talent moving up to #11 and some luck for him to fall. Chernyshov was alot of luck that he fell so far but the pick itself was also a result of historic ineptitude not gm skill. Musty looks like a great value pick, and that's good GM skill if he pans out.

I'm just curious, what's the difference between Musty falling to 26 and it being good GM skill and Cherny or Dickinson falling and it being other GM incompetent and/or luck? They're all the same.

Also, saying Smith wasn't GM talent when they very easily could have picked Michkov or even Reinbacher (both whom were on occasion mocked to the sharks) is not being honest

 

[matt trick]

I completely agree, that Grier has done a solid job building the future. I am thrilled with the prospect pool, and the speed that he has built it. 2 years ago, we had eklund and a pile of poo poo. Now ,its 5-6 solid top 6/9 NHL quality forwards, at least 2-4 D, and a #1 G.

While building a farm is never easy, its a whole lot easier when you trade any semblance of veteran talent in your entire organization and you get a #1 and #4 overall pick to book as a result of historic ineptitude.

As I said earlier, the real test will be building, not tearing down. Celly was not GM talent. Neither was Smith. Dickinson had some GM talent moving up to #11 and some luck for him to fall. Chernyshov was alot of luck that he fell so far but the pick itself was also a result of historic ineptitude not gm skill. Musty looks like a great value pick, and that's good GM skill if he pans out. Jury still out on Bystedt, lund, and Havelid vs. Geekie (2022 trade back).

In short, how he adds pieces to build around the farm is going to be the key. I am beginning to have some faith in his ability to do that however. The Ceci and Askarov moves show that he is not reticent to pounce on an opportunity to add key pieces. He may not get "steals" but he is making overall sound moves, and I can forgive the past adds that were so bad (kunin, lindbom, etc), as they were low risk. I also like the askarov extension too. 2M is a very low risk number, and gives the sharks their potential number #1G for the next three years, while giving askarov an NHL paycheck and making him happy and motivated.

I am excited that the tear down is now complete, becasue I am excited to watch the "build" process unfold. Toffoli is the first longer term, bgger $ vet, and I like that play. I cant wait to watch the development this year at all levels and I think summer 2025 should be a major adding summer.

Damn the offseason feels SO long when youre out of playoff contention by november....

In Karlsson, Meier, Burns and Hertl stuck around, and Grier added a few secondary pieces, we may have ended up with Leonard and Catton instead of Celebrini and Smith, not to mention those four turned into Zetterlund, Muk, Musty, Chernyshov, Dickinson, and Askarov (and close to $30M in cap). That took skill. Skill to convince an 80yo billionaire to take on a long rebuild, skill to futuristically see that those four players would delay the inevitable, skill to draft high-upside players. Skill to facilitate a system that allowed Karlsson and his unmovable contract to flourish, and become tradable. Skill to ensure the tank bottomed out in a year where there was a massive gap in talent from 1st to 2nd overall.

Tanking may be the ‘easy part’ but with Karlsson, Burns, Couture, Vlasic, Kane, Hertl, and Meier on the books, SJ was further away from rock bottom than most. It looked like SJ was looking at 2-3 years of middling awful that Grier skipped, getting them into awful awful just in time for three franchise superstar drafts (Bedard, Celebrini, McKenna) with about 4+ other potential first line centers (Fantilli, Carlsson, Smith, Hagens).

Could have been terrible for the Cooley/Wright/Beniers/Slafovsky/Power drafts. Excluding Bedard (23) and Hughes (19) you’ve got to go back to Matthews in 2016 to find a higher rated #1 overall (maybe Dahlin).

We’re going to be real bad for at least one more year. The only question is, will we bad for the McKenna draft as well?

With Askarov in the fold, might be an argument to get Schaefer/Hensler/Martone/Hagens this year and start just doing for it with major UFAs/trades.

 

[Shark in Hockeytown]

His own Miika Kiprusoff, maybe Filip Forsberg are up there. Not better than Jumbo but the others are debatable. These were young assets so it’s not a fair comparison to most of the above since they were proven when traded.

Regardless I agree with what you said. DW was a master of buying with quantity talent that was either soured on by the GM (Thornton) or soured on their GM (Boyle). What an undervalued market. I got to watch playoff hockey for decades because of DW.

Wilson's signature move was whenever a star player was likely to be moved, typically but not always because of upcoming UFA status, he was all over it. He made many of those trades: Thornton, Guerin, Campbell, Boyle, Heatley, Burns, Kane and Karlsson off the top of my head. When you look at the whole list of those trades, it doesn't look as good as when you only look at the ones that worked.

 

[Alaskanice]

Wilson's signature move was whenever a star player was likely to be moved, typically but not always because of upcoming UFA status, he was all over it. He made many of those trades: Thornton, Guerin, Campbell, Boyle, Heatley, Burns, Kane and Karlsson off the top of my head. When you look at the whole list of those trades, it doesn't look as good as when you only look at the ones that worked.

DW was the precursor to VGK thinking.

 

[SJSharksfan39]

I was starting to doubt Grier for a while and then I saw The Hockey Guy's deep dive into the Sharks and what exactly they are doing back in March. That video helped me understand what is going on and actually made me put faith into Grier for at least 2 more seasons. We don't know what the product will look like on the ice, but off the Ice, I trust Grier knows what he is doing. For that reason I'm not going to grade his individual trades (And I'm ignorant from an individual level anyway) and just say if this team is better and more watchable than last year, Grier will get nothing lower than a B. If this team is worse than last year or about the same, then I will start asking annoying questions.

 

[sampler]

Wilson's signature move was whenever a star player was likely to be moved, typically but not always because of upcoming UFA status, he was all over it. He made many of those trades: Thornton, Guerin, Campbell, Boyle, Heatley, Burns, Kane and Karlsson off the top of my head. When you look at the whole list of those trades, it doesn't look as good as when you only look at the ones that worked.

Yes, you are spot on. DW loved getting guys with one year left on their contracts. It’s a genius strategy because you never know how a player will fit in both on and off the ice. DW got a full year to asses their fit before deciding on a longer term commitment. Much safer than ufas or adding guys with long contracts. Heatoey and soupy were great examples of genius GMing that didn’t work out great but didn’t hamstring the team.

Some of those worked and some didn’t. But the ones that didn’t are still genius because they came at the cost of a prospect or pick not 8x8.

This worked until he badly misjudged Kane and his character, as well as karlsson coupled with Covid and 4-5 years of really bad drafting.

My point is that no GM hits only home runs. It’s all about maximizing the benefit of the hits (Thornton, burns, etc) and minimizing the pain of the misses (soupy Guerin, etc). He did this extremely well for about 18 years… until he didn’t. Twice. Hence the end….

 

[sampler]

I'm just curious, what's the difference between Musty falling to 26 and it being good GM skill and Cherny or Dickinson falling and it being other GM incompetent and/or luck? They're all the same.

Also, saying Smith wasn't GM talent when they very easily could have picked Michkov or even Reinbacher (both whom were on occasion mocked to the sharks) is not being honest

The difference is player ranking. Why is Dickinson considered a great pick? Because he was ranked higher than 11 generally. That’s it. Ranking. Same with cherny.

It’s very possible that a year form now the dick pick backfires (as many do ;-)). Chernyshov and dick picks will be judged much better in a year or two.

Musty was picked roughly in line with ranking at draft day. However, his redraft ranking would be much higher. That’s a good value pick and a good GM find.

If pavs had been a 2nd overall pick, it would be fine GMing. But at 203, it’s goddamn genius.

That’s the difference between musty and dick. When you find higher talent at Lower picks you’ve done well but it takes little skilll to take the top player at 1st overall…

As for smith, michkov was possible but considered more risky. So Grier took the widely expected and accordingly ranked smith. Could well turn out to be horrible gming if michkov wins the Calder . Though, to me, it’s neither good nor bad. It’s kinda obvious.

Now, dick vs buium will be a fun judgment to make in time but getting dick was a function of other teams passing on him not Grier going off the board and landing a gem or getting a star at 167.

Drafting Mc David was not great gming.

PS: I wonder if pohlcamp may end up the best pick Grier has made. If a guy like him becomes a top pair, that’s super GMing.

 

[sampler]

I was starting to doubt Grier for a while and then I saw The Hockey Guy's deep dive into the Sharks and what exactly they are doing back in March. That video helped me understand what is going on and actually made me put faith into Grier for at least 2 more seasons. We don't know what the product will look like on the ice, but off the Ice, I trust Grier knows what he is doing. For that reason I'm not going to grade his individual trades (And I'm ignorant from an individual level anyway) and just say if this team is better and more watchable than last year, Grier will get nothing lower than a B. If this team is worse than last year or about the same, then I will start asking annoying questions.

I assure you, the chances they are worse than last year is practically zero. That’s the joy and genius of anchoring so low…

The sharks have 3/4 new roster with nearly every position upgraded. Should be a whole lot better….

 

[sharski]

The only move by GMMG that really bothered was the Hertl trade just because I felt like I got stabbed in the haht. How much more betrayal could I take?

Then after a few hours of venting I saw that Hertl asked for it and I was like ok fine Im moving on and put my miley cyrus playlist on and I was #over it by eod

 

[sampler]

The only move by GMMG that really bothered was the Hertl trade just because I felt like I got stabbed in the haht. How much more betrayal could I take?

Then after a few hours of venting I saw that Hertl asked for it and I was like ok fine Im moving on and put my miley cyrus playlist on and I was #over it by eod

Hertl trade was a good one. Like you said, did good by Hertl (just like the burns trade), ended up getting Askarov indexctly, and saved enough cap space for Toffoli and a touch.

I miss our guys. I miss Hertl and Meier. I looooved Bernsie on and off the ice. I was devastated to lose pavs. It’s hard that the roster is now completely new from two years ago aside from ferraro (pickles and cooch too but who knows how much they will play).

But the new era is starting now and im totally ready and now excited.

If all goes well, we’ve got 1-2 at C. Four solid wingers to be in Toffoli, Eklund, Zetterlund, and Musty. 1-2 at D in dick and mukh. And #1 G in Askarov. Not to mention a solid boatload of possible other potentials at F (chern, Bystedt, haltunnen, etc), at D (LSW, Cagnoni, pohlcamp…)…

Obviously all that vision could crumble very fast, but at this moment, it’s a lot to watch and get excited for….