Confirmed with Link: Zetterlund, Robins, 4th to Ottawa for 2025 2nd, Zack Ostapchuk, Noah Gregor

[Jargon]

Graf's improvement this season has been very impressive.

Yeah, I’ve really liked him. His skating has gotten SO much better, his defense is very good and recently he’s been adding some slick offensive plays. If he keeps the latter up I’d love to see what he can do in the top 6.

 

[sampler]

Graf's improvement this season has been very impressive.

yes, but he is still a ways away from legit top 9 guy. he has shown some flashes for sure, but nothing to write home about just yet.

 

[Cas]

yes, but he is still a ways away from legit top 9 guy. he has shown some flashes for sure, but nothing to write home about just yet.

Agreed - Grad or Kovalenko, or maybe someone still on the farm, could replace Zetterlund, but they are not there yet.

I remind myself that I thought Zetterlund was totally useless after we traded for him, so even if they have poor showings over the rest of the season doesn't mean they will continue to do so. That was a big miss.

 

[mogambomoroo]

I would say the overreaction is because of the chemisty with the group and more importantly Eklund.
They didn't lose a gamechanger in Zetts, but they lost a player that was supporting the team through hard times. I think MG has the spotlight on him right now with this trade, it's time for him to show as a GM that this move will help the Sharks long term.

Honestly I'm excited to see if MG can pull of another Askarov trade with all the assets he got this TDL.
The thing is that he needs to make massive changes this summer for this team to even have a chance to challenge for a better than top 10 draft in '26.

 

[LadyStanley]

 

[The Nemesis]

The thing is that he needs to make massive changes this summer for this team to even have a chance to challenge for a better than top 10 draft in '26.

Who said that's the goal? Teams don't just jump from the basement to borderline playoff contention in a year with enough regularity to make that a realistic goal. I'll be content with them finishing in the 6-10 draft range next season and then the next year comes the playoff push.

The improvement Grier talked about is going to be incremental. Because they're not just digging their way out of a pothole. Being the worst team in the league is a huge crater. Just as an example, if by this time next season the Sharks have 10 more wins by this point next year, a pretty lofty goal, they would still be 7 or 8 points out of a wild card spot and still 8th in the draft standings. Hell, if they DOUBLE their current win total, then in the current standings they would just barely be into 3rd in the Pacific and only like 4 points away from falling even out of the WC race.

The first step is climbing out of the bottom 5. Top 10 is too much of a leap at the moment.

 

[TheBeard]

I think that’s a very fair assessment. Zetterlund and Eklund were the bright spots last year and they worked hard to keep getting better this year, he was infinitely watchable and their friendship was adorable and was a thing to cheer for when the on ice product sucked.

But objectively, Graf or even Kovalenko can likely take Zetterlund’s spot and I would argue that Graf actually might end up being a better player.

It’s a bummer because I loved cheering for him and Eklund and I do wish if we traded him we got a better return (a defenseman for example) but… yeah, objectively it’s not some kind of horrific, team-destroying mistake.

While true, the team doesn't have enough NHL talent to simply be replacing the ones we have with others that may get there. This is why we end up with the Goodrows and Kunins on the bottom 6, because Grier is constantly moving out top 6 players.

I also still worry that if we have another season like this, what incentive does Eklund have to extend? He'll be 23 when the season starts, having already been a part of 4 seasons and no closer to playoffs than when he started his journey with us? Do you think he wants to wait until he's 27 or 28 to compete?

If Grier wanted Osta, he could have gotten him without Zetterlund. It was clearly about the money and I wish Mike was a little more transparent about that.

 

[Hodge]

I'll be content with them finishing in the 6-10 draft range next season and then the next year comes the playoff push.

I agree with the rest of your post but I'm not sure what the value is in finishing with the 6th-10th overall pick given how stacked the top of next year's draft is. A lot can change in a year but at least right now McKenna, Verhoeff, Belchetz and Roobroeck all look like 1OA-caliber prospects who would fill glaring holes on the Sharks going forward.

I'm not saying intentionally tank but I won't judge Grier too harshly if he sticks to just replacing/marginally upgrading on the guys we lost. Maybe a Trent Frederic or Alex Iafallo to replace Zetterlund, an Andrew Copp to upgrade on Sturm, a Dumoulin to replace Walman's minutes. That way if we do end up in that 6th-10th overall range it will almost certainly be because Celebrini, Smith and Askarov led us there.

 

[OrrNumber4]

I agree with the rest of your post but I'm not sure what the value is in finishing with the 6th-10th overall pick given how stacked the top of next year's draft is. A lot can change in a year but at least right now McKenna, Verhoeff, Belchetz and Roobroeck all look like 1OA-caliber prospects who would fill glaring holes on the Sharks going forward.

I'm not saying intentionally tank but I won't judge Grier too harshly if he sticks to just replacing/marginally upgrading on the guys we lost. Maybe a Trent Frederic or Alex Iafallo to replace Zetterlund, an Andrew Copp to upgrade on Sturm, a Dumoulin to replace Walman's minutes. That way if we do end up in that 6th-10th overall range it will almost certainly be because Celebrini, Smith and Askarov led us there.

I think there's a strong chance that every year the Sharks aren't competing they are wasting a year of Celebrini/Askarovs' peaks/primes.

 

[weastern bias]

I think there's a strong chance that every year the Sharks aren't competing they are wasting a year of Celebrini/Askarovs' peaks/primes.

Next year is not a year of those two players primes, they will be 19 and 23 years old, we have plenty of time right now, there's no need to raise any alarm this early

 

[coooldude]

I agree with the rest of your post but I'm not sure what the value is in finishing with the 6th-10th overall pick given how stacked the top of next year's draft is. A lot can change in a year but at least right now McKenna, Verhoeff, Belchetz and Roobroeck all look like 1OA-caliber prospects who would fill glaring holes on the Sharks going forward.

I'm not saying intentionally tank but I won't judge Grier too harshly if he sticks to just replacing/marginally upgrading on the guys we lost. Maybe a Trent Frederic or Alex Iafallo to replace Zetterlund, an Andrew Copp to upgrade on Sturm, a Dumoulin to replace Walman's minutes. That way if we do end up in that 6th-10th overall range it will almost certainly be because Celebrini, Smith and Askarov led us there.

There's always going to be an exciting top 1-5 prospects in the next draft that, once they're fully mature, would be able to help at the top of the lineup, possibly the top of the NHL. And yes, generational drafts come and go, but looking back, the world generally seems to be pretty poor at actually ID'ing the truly deep drafts other than the ones that smack you in the face (Ovie/Crosby, Malkin, Matthews, McDavid, 2003).

We can't just keep tanking for the next best thing. Schaefer this year, McKenna next year, DuPont the following, who knows whose kid the year after. Unquestionably all of them would give us a chance at a dynasty -- but the chance of picking any one is no more than 25% at best, all the while you are harming your own already-elite prospects' development.

I believe culture changes with winning, I'm not quite as worried as others about becoming the Sabres, but I also firmly believe that early career development matters and Celebrini/Smith/Eklund would be better players playing on winning teams in their first few years than they would be playing on losing teams. Couture wouldn't have had as good of a career if drafted to a bottom feeder, nor Hertl. Kane and Toews wouldn't have been as successful if they were at the beginning of the CHI rebuild rather than the final pieces.

If we're still talking about being truly in the running (and not just lucky) for McKenna/Verhoeff, AND DuPont, then OK, but then we aren't really going to be in our window until 2035 (10 years), which would match the very longest of rebuild timelines that have been successful (e.g. Avs - 11 years from Landeskog to Cup, 9 years from MacKinnon; 13 years from the failed core piece Duchene, which would be our Eklund or Smith). Hell, it's 10 years since McDavid, although you and I and others know that the Oilers have absolutely f***ed it at every turn.

By 2035, Celebrini/Smith will be good-not-great, or great-not-elite pieces having suffered through 8-10 years of mediocre hockey before the new youth truth saves them. You don't want to pull out of the rebuild too fast, but if we pick top 3-4 5 years in a row, it would be the first rebuild of its kind to be successful.

 

[themelkman]

I think there's a strong chance that every year the Sharks aren't competing they are wasting a year of Celebrini/Askarovs' peaks/primes.

All you really have to do is look at a team like the buffalo sabres to see that is true

 

[Cas]

I also still worry that if we have another season like this, what incentive does Eklund have to extend?

I can think of 64 or so million reasons.

 

[Cas]

I think there's a strong chance that every year the Sharks aren't competing they are wasting a year of Celebrini/Askarovs' peaks/primes.

We were always going to be this awful this year (and has been noted, we have improved compared to last year) and we were always going to be bad next year, too.

We're not wasting anything.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

All you really have to do is look at a team like the buffalo sabres to see that is true

Until they can legitimately build a blue line, they aren’t competing. At least Muk looks like a long term option and we need to see what we have in Dickinson but we’re still two or three blue liners away from having something meaningful there.

 

[TheBeard]

I can think of 64 or so million reasons.

Do you not think there would be 30 other teams offering that? What is to stop Grier from moving on from him if the team is yet again not as good as he’d hoped they would be? Like I said. Eklund will be 23, looking for max dollars and the team still not close, it almost in a way would be beneficial for both parties to move on.

 

[OrrNumber4]

We were always going to be this awful this year (and has been noted, we have improved compared to last year) and we were always going to be bad next year, too.

We're not wasting anything.

You're wasting a year of building to competing, which means you lose a year of competing on the backend.

 

[weastern bias]

You're wasting a year of building to competing, which means you lose a year of competing on the backend.

We absolutely are not

Drafting high IS building towards competing, we also invested excess draft capital to aquire the goaltender we hope to compete with

What could have actually prevented us from competing in Celebrini's prime was if we overinvested in this year's team by committing money to win-now pieces for this team which may have elevated us away from a top-4 pick and also committed salary during years where we need to actually pay our young core, basically doing what Ken Holland did McDavid's career all over again, the Oilers never recovered from the mistakes they made during McDavid's ELC and have been playing catch-up ever since

 

[The Nemesis]

I agree with the rest of your post but I'm not sure what the value is in finishing with the 6th-10th overall pick given how stacked the top of next year's draft is. A lot can change in a year but at least right now McKenna, Verhoeff, Belchetz and Roobroeck all look like 1OA-caliber prospects who would fill glaring holes on the Sharks going forward.

I'm not saying intentionally tank but I won't judge Grier too harshly if he sticks to just replacing/marginally upgrading on the guys we lost. Maybe a Trent Frederic or Alex Iafallo to replace Zetterlund, an Andrew Copp to upgrade on Sturm, a Dumoulin to replace Walman's minutes. That way if we do end up in that 6th-10th overall range it will almost certainly be because Celebrini, Smith and Askarov led us there.

I'm not saying I'm content with them finishing 6th-10th in the sense of it giving the team another solid prospect add. I'm saying that if Grier is right and Friday was the end of the "selling everything that's not nailed down" phase and that starting with 25-26 we're going to see the baby steps towards contention, then them finishing in that 6-10 range on the draft board represents enough of a step forward that I will be satisfied with the progress.

It's that I think finishing outside of the top 10 is an unrealistic jump, but still being bottom 5 (short of maybe finishing 5th or beating the odds and winning the lottery from a higher spot) would mean that there hasn't been enough forward momentum to really solidify that we're going to get proper incremental progress towards being good again and open up a decently long window of success.

 

[Hodge]

I think there's a strong chance that every year the Sharks aren't competing they are wasting a year of Celebrini/Askarovs' peaks/primes.

Sure but drafting 6th-10th overall is also wasting a year of Celebrini/Askarov's primes and you don't even get a surefire prospect to show for it.

There's always going to be an exciting top 1-5 prospects in the next draft that, once they're fully mature, would be able to help at the top of the lineup, possibly the top of the NHL. And yes, generational drafts come and go, but looking back, the world generally seems to be pretty poor at actually ID'ing the truly deep drafts other than the ones that smack you in the face (Ovie/Crosby, Malkin, Matthews, McDavid, 2003).

We can't just keep tanking for the next best thing. Schaefer this year, McKenna next year, DuPont the following, who knows whose kid the year after. Unquestionably all of them would give us a chance at a dynasty -- but the chance of picking any one is no more than 25% at best, all the while you are harming your own already-elite prospects' development.

I believe culture changes with winning, I'm not quite as worried as others about becoming the Sabres, but I also firmly believe that early career development matters and Celebrini/Smith/Eklund would be better players playing on winning teams in their first few years than they would be playing on losing teams. Couture wouldn't have had as good of a career if drafted to a bottom feeder, nor Hertl. Kane and Toews wouldn't have been as successful if they were at the beginning of the CHI rebuild rather than the final pieces.

If we're still talking about being truly in the running (and not just lucky) for McKenna/Verhoeff, AND DuPont, then OK, but then we aren't really going to be in our window until 2035 (10 years), which would match the very longest of rebuild timelines that have been successful (e.g. Avs - 11 years from Landeskog to Cup, 9 years from MacKinnon; 13 years from the failed core piece Duchene, which would be our Eklund or Smith). Hell, it's 10 years since McDavid, although you and I and others know that the Oilers have absolutely f***ed it at every turn.

By 2035, Celebrini/Smith will be good-not-great, or great-not-elite pieces having suffered through 8-10 years of mediocre hockey before the new youth truth saves them. You don't want to pull out of the rebuild too fast, but if we pick top 3-4 5 years in a row, it would be the first rebuild of its kind to be successful.

I agree with all of this and I realize "just one more year" is a slippery slope. I just don't think it's the worst idea to have a repeat of the 2024 offseason - sign some quality veteran UFAs, maybe try to package the Edmonton 1st and a prospect like Bystedt to make an Askarov-esque trade for a defenseman who fits the timeline - rather than aggressively pursuing a Marner or Ekblad.

Use the 2025-26 season to gather more information on how good Celebrini, Smith and Askarov can actually be, whether guys like Dickinson and Chernyshov have true top half of the lineup potential and let Schaefer/Misa/Martone get their feet wet in the NHL before really starting to push our chips in during the 2026 offseason. By then, other teams will begin to move on from players who are Eklund or maybe even Smith's age and we can add our Nichushkin or Burakovsky type secondary core piece who fits the timeline.

Every additional season like this certainly increases the risk of locking in a losing culture, Celebrini/Smith/Eklund developing bad habits, in the worst case scenario those guys not feeling comfortable signing here long term. If Grier is still slow cooking this thing 15 months from now with an eye towards landing Dupont then it's time to start getting concerned IMO.

 

[Cas]

Do you not think there would be 30 other teams offering that? What is to stop Grier from moving on from him if the team is yet again not as good as he’d hoped they would be? Like I said. Eklund will be 23, looking for max dollars and the team still not close, it almost in a way would be beneficial for both parties to move on.

I do indeed believe there will not be 30 other teams offering Eklund a large offer sheet that we cannot afford to match.

 

[DG93]

If Mike's worst move that lead to a 20 page apocalyptic meltdown thread was trading a pending RFA 3rd liner instead of overpaying him then I think he's doing a pretty good job

I will add that the same thing happened when Hertl was traded. Fans are emotional and losing fan favorite players is hard...but you get over it with time. Now the Hertl return was a lot more solid (particularly given his negative value contract...thank you, Joe Will) whereas here we really need to put faith in the scouts and Ostapchuk (+ whatever the 2nd round pick is used for, I guess), but that's besides the point. Overall, I agree with your point wholeheartedly.

 

[hohosaregood]

We were always going to be this awful this year (and has been noted, we have improved compared to last year) and we were always going to be bad next year, too.

We're not wasting anything.

yea like we have to consider the situation if Celebrini wasn't drafted, and immediately succeeded. this team would be as unwatchable as last year if Celebrini was just a run of the mill 1OA.

 

[WSS11]

Next year is not a year of those two players primes, they will be 19 and 23 years old, we have plenty of time right now, there's no need to raise any alarm this early

Agree with this. For so long Patty and Jumbo were our two key core players and we traded for Jumbo when he was 26 in 2005 and maintained a cup window of 10+ years (with a couple of down years sprinkled in there) during their time in teal. Smith and Celebrini are still teenagers.

Hell, the Panthers drafted Ekblad and Barkov top 3 in 2013 and 2014 while drafting Huberdeau 3rd overall a couple of years earlier. They didn’t make the cup until two years ago. They added Reinhart, Bob, Bennett, Tkachuk (Huby trade) etc. as their core matured.


There will be a time for Grier to make aggressive moves for high impact players via free agency and trade. We’re still a ways away from that. He does need to add some vets and improve the team starting this offseason though while our prospect pool continues to grow.

 

[JoeThorntonsRooster]

Sure but drafting 6th-10th overall is also wasting a year of Celebrini/Askarov's primes and you don't even get a surefire prospect to show for it.


I agree with all of this and I realize "just one more year" is a slippery slope. I just don't think it's the worst idea to have a repeat of the 2024 offseason - sign some quality veteran UFAs, maybe try to package the Edmonton 1st and a prospect like Bystedt to make an Askarov-esque trade for a defenseman who fits the timeline - rather than aggressively pursuing a Marner or Ekblad.

Use the 2025-26 season to gather more information on how good Celebrini, Smith and Askarov can actually be, whether guys like Dickinson and Chernyshov have true top half of the lineup potential and let Schaefer/Misa/Martone get their feet wet in the NHL before really starting to push our chips in during the 2026 offseason. By then, other teams will begin to move on from players who are Eklund or maybe even Smith's age and we can add our Nichushkin or Burakovsky type secondary core piece who fits the timeline.

Every additional season like this certainly increases the risk of locking in a losing culture, Celebrini/Smith/Eklund developing bad habits, in the worst case scenario those guys not feeling comfortable signing here long term. If Grier is still slow cooking this thing 15 months from now with an eye towards landing Dupont then it's time to start getting concerned IMO.

Agree with most of this. The “losing culture” thing is overstated. If Celebrini, Smith, etc. are the leaders and professionals that we make them out to be then they’ll overcome it.