Prospect Info: Top Shelf Prospects: San Jose Sharks

[LastWordArmy]

http://lastwordonsports.com/top-shelf-prospects-san-jose-sharks-2/


Top Shelf Prospects: San Jose Sharks

The Sharks system has been hurt by trading away recent picks, and top prospects like Charlie Coyle and Michael Sgarbossa. Overall they currently have one of the weaker systems in the league. College free agent pickups like Matt Tennyson and Travis Oleksuk certainly help to build depth, but it just isn’t enough. When we look at the San Jose system, we see a lack of blue chip elite talent. Hertl is a good prospect, but he’s not a surefire great one. There are some potential third liners in players like Freddie Hamilton and Chris Tierney and some undersized scorers like a Dan O’Regan, but overall these players wouldn’t always crack the top 10 prospects if they were with other teams. Its a serious lack of depth in San Jose that has been added to the lack of blue chip talent and the Sharks system has some big issues. Recent drafting has not been good as the Sharks have not had a single pick from the 2009, 2010, 2011, or 2012 drafts play a single NHL game as a San Jose Shark (the only player who has played in the NHL is Coyle). This makes the decisions surrounding Thornton, Marleau, and Boyle after this season all the more pressing for Sharks management.

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[sr228]

One of these days I'll understand this line of thinking:

Recent drafting has not been good as the Sharks have not had a single pick from the 2009, 2010, 2011, or 2012 drafts play a single NHL game as a San Jose Shark

The 2009 draft turned out to be bad for the Sharks, no question, but how anyone can say a team is "not good" at drafting because they haven't graduated any players that were drafted during the past 3-4 years, even though Coyle was a Sharks pick, is beyond me. Not all teams have to rush their prospects and a majority of picks outside of the top 10 (or more often the top 5) take at least a couple of years, usually more, to reach the NHL.

It's way, way too early to consider the 2010-2013 drafts "not good".

 

[Juxtaposer]

Sgarbossa wasn't considered a top prospect by anyone but us Sharks fans until he was traded away and people either realized he was a stud or decided to pump him up just to make digs at the Sharks prospect pool. Both are sad.

There is no way Hamilton, Tierney, and O'Regan would have trouble cracking most of the team's top-10's, please.

 

[210]

Hamilton is going to a very solid two-way NHL player sooner than later. He most certainly would be on every team's top-10 prospect list.

 

[do0glas]

thought the article was okay until the summation.

yes, our first round picks are lacking. however we actually have a fairly deep prospect pool, imo. none of them except hertl/nieto seem to top out on the first line, but i think that can be beneficial in some ways.

 

[Juxtaposer]

Geez, I love the 'Same Old Sharks' comment too. Strong beginning sentence. It's not like we swept the 3rd seed and took the defending Champs to Game 7 as a sixth seed or anything, despite Havlat being injured and Torres being suspended. We did much better in the playoffs than we did in the regular season, moron.

 

[do0glas]

None of these articles that come through here are ever any good...sigh.

 

[Juxtaposer]

The actual reviews of Hertl, Nieto, and Tennyson were spot on. It's the obnoxious digs at the Sharks that pisses me off.

 

[sr228]

Geez, I love the 'Same Old Sharks' comment too. Strong beginning sentence. It's not like we swept the 3rd seed and took the defending Champs to Game 7 as a sixth seed or anything, despite Havlat being injured and Torres being suspended. We did much better in the playoffs than we did in the regular season, moron.

I admittedly didn't read the whole article, I read the paragraph that was quoted in the OP and then opened the article but stopped reading after the first sentence.

I figured it was the same thing I've been reading about the Sharks for several years now: good regular season team that chokes/can't get it done when it counts, their window is either closed or closing, their prospect pool is bad - sounds like I was right.

 

[do0glas]

i thought it was funny that tennyson was highly coveted as a free agent (will likely graduate sooner rather than later to nhl), hertl can be a top 6 center, nieto a scoring winger, etc but our prospect pool is meh.

not to mention wingels/desi/irwin/braun all recently graduating.

 

[Juxtaposer]

i thought it was funny that tennyson was highly coveted as a free agent (will likely graduate sooner rather than later to nhl), hertl can be a top 6 center, nieto a scoring winger, etc but our prospect pool is meh.

not to mention wingels/desi/irwin/braun all recently graduating.

A lot of teams have multiple Nieto's. just sayin'.

But WRT a comment that Stalock made above: Detroit hasn't graduated a player since I think 2007. Does that mean their drafting has been terrible in the past few years?

I have no problem with a publication like this saying that we don't have a fantastic prospect pool. But the way this goes about it is sad. The issue with our prospect pool is that the rest of the league's judgement is always so very behind the curve. Is Tarasov the next Sgarbossa? Why is Demelo ignored when he did a lot of great things in the OHL? Abeltshauser's Memorial Cup? I don't think these guys are stud can't miss guys by any means, but they deserve being paid attention to.

 

[do0glas]

A lot of teams have multiple Nieto's. just sayin'.

But WRT a comment that Stalock made above: Detroit hasn't graduated a player since I think 2007. Does that mean their drafting has been terrible in the past few years?

I have no problem with a publication like this saying that we don't have a fantastic prospect pool. But the way this goes about it is sad. The issue with our prospect pool is that the rest of the league's judgement is always so very behind the curve. Is Tarasov the next Sgarbossa? Why is Demelo ignored when he did a lot of great things in the OHL? Abeltshauser's Memorial Cup? I don't think these guys are stud can't miss guys by any means, but they deserve being paid attention to.

i was more alluding to the amount of players that make our team. its actually a good amount.

 

[Juxtaposer]

i was more alluding to the amount of players that make our team. its actually a good amount.

No doubt. But here's a funny thing: Matt Irwin is only a year and four months older than Brendan Smith. But Brendan Smith is a stud potential first-pairing defenseman and Irwin is lucky to be in the NHL, even though Irwin had a great season and Smith struggled mightily.

 

[SJeasy]

i was more alluding to the amount of players that make our team. its actually a good amount.

You see the change from the earlier version of the Sharks in that they are going out and buying C. White, Wallin, Hannan, Burish, Nichol, Malhotra, Mayers, Eager, Winchester, etc. Previously, they were bringing up Cheech, Goc, Murray, Gorges, Carle, Ehrhoff, Clowe, Rissmiller, etc. They are not giving as many spots in the lower part of the lineup to their own guys. They had as many as 15 to 16 spots filled by the Sharks own, not anymore. I hope that is going to change.

 

[sr228]

i thought it was funny that tennyson was highly coveted as a free agent (will likely graduate sooner rather than later to nhl), hertl can be a top 6 center, nieto a scoring winger, etc but our prospect pool is meh.

not to mention wingels/desi/irwin/braun all recently graduating.

The Sharks prospect pool is "meh", however, that doesn't mean it's one of the worst in the NHL (meaning bottom 3).

The Sharks lack blue chip prospects. Hertl and maybe Mueller could be considered blue chip by some but as of right now they are the only two. What most people fail to mention when writing about this lack of blue chip prospects is the fact that the highest the Sharks have drafted in the past 6 years is #17 (Hertl/2012). People can't expect the Sharks to draft blue chip prospects with late 1st round picks, this isn't an issue with the orgs drafting.

What the Sharks do have is a prospect pool with a lot of depth players and many prospects that have a pretty good shot at a career in the NHL. They also have some prospects that I think will surprise a lot of people and end up being better then most expect them to be.

Not too many people follow the Sharks and their system all that closely. Coyle and Hertl were both considered "reaches" by many and Sgarbossa was considered a 3rd liner, if he even made it to the NHL, when the Sharks drafted/signed them - opinions have changed quite a bit on those 3 and I expect that to continue to happen.

 

[do0glas]

The Sharks prospect pool is "meh", however, that doesn't mean it's one of the worst in the NHL (meaning bottom 3).

The Sharks lack blue chip prospects. Hertl and maybe Mueller could be considered blue chip by some but as of right now they are the only two. What most people fail to mention when writing about this lack of blue chip prospects is the fact that the highest the Sharks have drafted in the past 6 years is #17 (Hertl/2012). People can't expect the Sharks to draft blue chip prospects with late 1st round picks, this isn't an issue with the orgs drafting.

What the Sharks do have is a prospect pool with a lot of depth players and many prospects that have a good shot at a career in the NHL. They also have some prospects that I think will surprise a lot of people and end up being better then most expect them to be.

Not too many people follow the Sharks and their system all that closely. Coyle and Hertl were both considered "reaches" by many and Sgarbossa was considered a 3rd liner, if he even made it to the NHL, when the Sharks drafted/signed them - opinions have changed quite a bit on those 3 and I expect that to continue to happen.

yep, trading away first rounders vs. where we actually draft in the first round should be separate things.

cellar dwellars probably have a great pool of prospects, but they are rebuilding.

I think a ton of our prospects get overlooked.

 

[SJeasy]

The Sharks lack blue chip prospects. Hertl and maybe Mueller could be considered blue chip by some but as of right now they are the only two. What most people fail to mention when writing about this lack of blue chip prospects is the fact that the highest the Sharks have drafted in the past 6 years is #17 (Hertl/2012). People can't expect the Sharks to draft blue chip prospects with late 1st round picks, this isn't an issue with the orgs drafting.

I'll agree that with the pick position that they won't have a lot of bluechips shortly after draft day. That will affect their prospect ranking. They do need to create a few afterwards. Guys who step up way above their initial ranking, like Ehrhoff, Carle, Cheech, Clowe, Pavelski, etc.

I'd love to see Carolina, Florida and Edmonton's ranking as they consistently choke hard on the later picks. The aforementioned are 3 among a few that really can't make anything of the later rounds.

 

[Sharksfan83]

I actually don't mind our prospect pool =/ Maybe I'm the only one.?

Ok, we don't have a range of blue chip prospects.

Joe Pavelski Age 29 Signed for 6 years.
Logan Couture Age 24 Signed for 6 years
Marc-Edouard Vlasic Age 26 Signed for 5 years
Brent Burns Age 28 Signed for 4 years.

It's not like we need superstars coming into the team within the next year or two to be competitive.

Now we have Hertl (Top Line Potential) Nieto (Top 6 Potential) Mueller (Top 2 Potential) Plus guys with high end roleplaying potential (Hamilton, Wingels, Tennyson, Tierney) then we have some high risk high reward projects (Boudreau, O'Regan)

We really aren't badly off for a team that has been competing for so long. We have some prospects that I really like without seeing much of them, like Hamilton.. Who most likely won't be a top line player by any stretch, he's still the kind of player teams need to win. Down the middle in say 3-5 years you may have Couture - Hertl - Hamilton and you still have Pavelski also!!

 

[SJeasy]

s.

It's not like we need superstars coming into the team within the next year or two to be competitive.

You need your offensive leaders to be in the 21-27 range. This has been true since the 04-05 lockout. IIRC, the only teams to break the rule were Carolina and Detroit. The rule changes added more speed to the game. To aspire to the silver thingy, teams need to be constantly on the hunt for elite offense in drafting.

 

[do0glas]

You need your offensive leaders to be in the 21-27 range. This has been true since the 04-05 lockout. IIRC, the only teams to break the rule were Carolina and Detroit. The rule changes added more speed to the game. To aspire to the silver thingy, teams need to be constantly on the hunt for elite offense in drafting.

our playoff scoring was lead by our young guys this year. how many leaders are you talking about? burns will need to step up, and probably vlasic offensively for us to have a chance.

 

[matt trick]

Would I like to have a Sean Monahan, Sven Baertschi, and Ryan Murray to replace Marleau, Thornton, and Boyle oncethe time is right? Of course. That said, our top 2 centers, and top 2 d-men are filled for the next 5 years with Pavelski, Couture, Vlasic, and Burns. Furthermore, Thornton and Marleau should score at second line levels for the next 3-5 years.

Mueller, Hertl, Nieto, and Boudreau are projected as complimentary players for the top half of the line-up, or better. Tierney, O'Regan, Kuraly, Wingels, Hamilton, and Tarasov, could earn top 9 spots as well. On defense, Mueller, Demelo, Irwin, Demers, Braun, Albelshauser, and Tennysson all have shots at middle pairing or better.

If we hit on 25% of our better prospects, we're looking at one top 6 forward, at least one middle 6 forward, and two top 4 d-men. I expect we will be closer to 35-50% amongs these guys.

If we get a first line forward out of the next three drafts, essentially every organizational need is filled.

 

[hohosaregood]

You need your offensive leaders to be in the 21-27 range. This has been true since the 04-05 lockout. IIRC, the only team to break the rule was Detroit. The rule changes added more speed to the game. To aspire to the silver thingy, teams need to be constantly on the hunt for elite offense in drafting.

I don't really agree with that because all the teams that have won since the lockouts were teams that went through extensive rebuilds except for Detroit. So a good chunk of the elite offense that played for all those teams were top 10 draft picks for the most part too so as a result they've been mainly young teams that have been winning.

The only thing I can say is that you want the franchise players to contribute especially if they're in their prime and it just so happened that all those teams' franchise players were younger guys.

 

[Sharksfan83]

Ill take constantly making the playoffs rather then tanking for a few years in hopes that we get lucky in the draft.

 

[do0glas]

go through the winners.

minus boston/detroit everyones top scorers are those teams first round picks. anaheim is later than others, so its possible. but we need to keep those picks

i should say in most cases the top 2 scorers from the winner, in some cases the top 3 (see LA)

 

[sr228]

I don't really agree with that because all the teams that have won since the lockouts were teams that went through extensive rebuilds except for Detroit. So a good chunk of the elite offense that played for all those teams were top 10 draft picks for the most part too so as a result they've been mainly young teams that have been winning.

The only thing I can say is that you want the franchise players to contribute especially if they're in their prime and it just so happened that all those teams' franchise players were younger guys.

I agree. There really are no "rules" when it comes to winning the Cup.

If people want the Sharks to replace Thornton, Marleau and Boyle in the draft then the org needs to be drafting top 3-5 for a few years, even then, it's pretty unlikely they're going to find a replacement for Thornton.