In two or so months, the first of San Jose Sharks General Manager Mike Grier's draft picks will make their NHL debuts.
Will Smith, who was the 4th overall pick in 2023, and Macklin Celebrini, who was the 1st overall pick in 2024 are set to be the first players from the Mike Grier era to make the NHL this fall.
Since assuming the role of GM from Doug Wilson and his team in the summer of 2022, Grier has made 27 selections across three drafts in an effort to revitalize the Sharks' depleted prospect pool.
This article isn't meant to be a draft retrospective. It's far too early to assume what these players will or won't do in the NHL. Typically a "good" draft nets you 2 NHLers by the way. Just something to keep in mind over the next few years and these prospects start to come into the pros.
Instead of a retrospective, I want to highlight three trends that I've seen from these drafts. We're going to be analyzing the drafting style of Mike Grier and his amateur scouting staff rather than the outcome of the drafts.
This staff did change immediately after year 1, as Doug Wilson Jr. was let go from his role as Director of Amateur Scouting immediately after 2022's draft. Hired in his place was Chris Morehouse, who had held the role for both Columbus and New York before moving to San Jose. While I do think this change did have an effect on the type of players drafted (and I'll mention a few examples) I do think some of the trends still hold true.
Trend 1: Big, Skilled, Project Forwards Come First
2022 Pick #27 - Filip Bystedt
2022 Pick #34 - Cam Lund
2023 Pick #26 - Quentin Musty
2023 Pick #36 - Kasper Halttunen
2024 Pick #33 - Igor Chernyshov
These players were all picked within 10 picks of each other over three drafts, are all over 6'2", and were all labeled as highly-skilled forwards but flawed in one way or another.
Filip Bystedt was the first pick from Mike Grier. Taking over a truly barren Sharks pool, he flipped the #11 pick to Arizona for #27, #34, and #45, prioritizing quantity over a single shot at a top prospect. Bystedt was billed as a long term project, with good straight line speed, lots of tools, but a lot of development necessary to project above the bottom six.
From The Athletic's Corey Pronman:
Bystedt was a player I suspected would be a first-round pick for a while due to his great size and skating ability, while having some offense and playing the middle — a combination of traits that is hard to find. He has some work to do around the edges in his game with his consistency, but in terms of pure upside, you weren’t going to find more late in the first round. He provides a size element that the Sharks lack in their system as well.
This is going to start to sound repetitive. Big, good skating, high-upside forwards with lots of flaws. For Bystedt the big question was, and still probably is, how high is the offensive ceiling. He's had an up-and-down Swedish pro career so far, and will be playing in his first full North American season this upcoming year with the Barracuda.
The next iteration of this archetype of prospect occurs with the very next pick at #34 with Cam Lund.
Again from Corey Pronman:
Lund has a clear NHL tool kit. He’s a 6-foot-2 forward who can skate, and has legit offensive touch. He can make skilled plays at full speed and be a real threat on zone entries. Lund shows some power-play creativity as a playmaker and has a good wrist shot from range. On his best shift he can be dynamic, but his best shifts are infrequent. He can also drift to the perimeter too much to generate his offense.
Got to love a tool-kit reference. It's a staple of this pick. Good tools, does the toolbox match? Lund's flaw was a lack of a physical game for someone with good size, and a lack of defensive commitment. It's still a question mark as he heads into his junior year in the NCAA. The offense has made him a top-scorer for his team though.
So Bystedt's question was: how high is the offensive ceiling, Lund's was how high is the defensive ceiling. A nice bit of yin-yang for the first two picks of Mike Grier's GM career.
Both have extremely high offensive ceilings. Musty is more of a rush playmaker, whereas Halttunen is a goal-scorer. Both are over 6'2", and both have flaws.
A quick aside, that at this range of the draft EVERY player has flaws. Hell every player ever has flaws, but I don't want anyone to misunderstand here. All players at this range of the draft have flaws big enough that they may never make the NHL because of them. I just think it's interesting that the Sharks have singled on this type of forward at this range.
Musty had questions about his commitment to defense, and concerns over a junior-style offensive game that led him to drop some in the draft. Todd Marchant mentioned this to Sheng and I on the San Jose Hockey Now Podcast last month:
"Great puck skills, great vision, has a very good shot...it's his play away from the puck, offensive players, especially in the OHL, there's a lot of cheating involved...those are area of his game that I think he needs to improve on, overall compete in some of the battles, some times he really wanted to win that battle and sometimes he wanted the easy way out."
Kasper Halttunen is much of the same story. He's refining his shot to be a potent weapon, but there remains questions of his play away from the puck and his playmaking. A big, skilled but flawed forward.
Lastly that brings us to Igor Chernyshov. Stop me please if you've heard this before. Big, high-skill, productive power forward with some flaws.
From an unnamed scout on the eliteprospects.com draft guide:
“He’s looked good in my viewings. He’s got offensive zone instincts. You could put him that kind of Greentree, Brandsegg-Nygård mould – complementary player, north-south winger, good hands, good on the power play. Not much presence or impact 5-on-5 though. He’s going to have to be a power forward in the NHL and he’s gotta get faster.”
Concerns about his 5-on-5 impacts, as well as his skating seem to crop up in scouting reports.
I'm not criticizing these picks at all. I think at this range from 25-45 players with size that are flawed often fall and a smart team makes out with a future star.
Players like Jason Robertson, picked #39 by Dallas in 2017. He fell because of his skating and is exactly the type of player the Sharks are targeting in this range. Sure, some, even most won't work out to be top liner forwards. They're betting one will though, and a physical limitation like height won't prevent them from reaching their ceilings.
Trend 2: No Small Forwards, but Maybe Small Defenders?
The Sharks have taken one, one single forward listed under 6 foot tall in three drafts.
That would be Joey Muldowney at pick #172 in 2022, listed at 5'9" on the University of Connecticut website, despite being listed at 5'11" on EP.
Since Chris Morehouse has taken over, they have taken zero forwards under 6 foot in the last two drafts.
Now Will Smith and Macklin Celebrini are close, as both are right at 6'0", but I'm also just not counting them. They're getting picked regardless of their size.
I'm talking the not top 10 guys. It's fascinating that this has held firm for the forwards but not for the defensemen the Sharks pick.
Despite only picking 11 defensemen vs. 13 forwards during this time, the Sharks have drafted three defensemen, Mattias Havelid (#45 in 2022), Luca Cagnoni (#123 in 2023) and Eric Pohlkamp (#132 in 2023) who are listed under 6 foot. A few others like Axel Landen and Leo Sahlin Wallenius are just at 6 foot.
This trend did not continue into 2024 however, as all of the four defensemen taken by the Sharks were above 6 feet. The aforementioned LSW is the shortest at 6 foot, with #11 overall Sam Dickinson listed at 6'3", #131 overall Colton Roberts and #143 overall Nate Misskey both listed at 6'4".
The 2024 draft was not the year to be a small defenseman league-wide. Long-projected top-10 pick Aron Kiviharjua went 122nd to Minnesota. "Short" 6 foot tall Zeev Buium went 12th overall instead of top 10, with size concerns predominating the discussion. Tomas Galvas, a diminutive Czech defender that was ranked 82nd by Bob McKenzie, went undrafted in 224 picks.
There have been a plethora of "Internet Scout" favorite small, high-skill forwards available in the top three rounds for the Sharks that they haven't taken. Andrew Cristall went #40 in 2023 to Washington after the Halttunen pick at #36. Jayden Perron went #94 in 2023 after the Svoboda pick at #71. Jagger Firkus went #35 in 2022, after Cam Lund's pick at #34. David Goyette at #61 and Adam Sykora at #63 in 2022 were both after Havelid at #45. Andrew Basha (#41) and Teddy Stiga (#55) were much the same this year.
The Sharks staff have shied away from these players in these rounds. Will that come back to bite them? Possibly. Time will tell. I'm encouraged that the players they are choosing aren't low producing guys though, with the exception of Brandon Svoboda. He was picked for his projectable fourth-line center's game (and was quite the valuable player at the World Junior Summer Showcase last week for Team USA). Similar to Carson Wetsch, another third round pick from 2024, who also has projectable bottom-six qualities with admittedly little chance to reach a top-six role.
Trend 3: Goaltending Is a Late-Round Venture
Personally, I think the Brandon Svoboda pick in the third round at #71 in 2023 was tagged for a goalie. Jacob Fowler went just two picks before at #69, and just after the Sharks had made a trade with Carolina to move into that #71 spot. A Boston College commit, I think he was their planned goalie pick in 2023. It just makes too much sense.
Once he was gone, the Sharks used none of their remaining five picks on a goaltender, despite having probably one of, if not the weakest goaltending prospect pool in the NHL then and now.
Mason Beaupit, a fourth rounder from 2022 by the Sharks was #108 overall, and marks the highest a goalie has gone for the Sharks in thee three drafts. He was not tendered an offer before his rights expired last June, so is no longer a Sharks prospect.
The two goalies the Sharks did take this year were #116 Christian Kirsch and overager Yaroslav Korostelyov out of Russia at #194. This year admittedly was not a good goaltending year by all accounts. The Sharks did however have the opportunity to grab some consensus "top" guys over the past three drafts and have not. In 2022 Topias Leinonen was available at Cam Lund's pick, going #41 overall, and Niklas Kokko at Mattias Havelid's pick, going #58 overall.
In 2023 five goaltenders went shortly after the Kasper Halttunen pick in Michael Hrabal at #38, Trey Augustine at #41, Carson Bjarnason at #51, Damian Clara at #60, and Jacob Fowler at #69.
In 2024 two goalies were available at the Chernyshov pick range, Ilya Nabokov (heh,) at #38 and Mikhail Yegorov at #49. Interestingly three goalies went directly after the Leo Sahlin Wallenius pick in the second, Carter George at #57, Evan Gardner at #60 and Eemil Vinni at #64.
What does all this mean? Well, I think the Sharks don't really value a goalie in the second round. I think they value goalies as third round or later ventures, with the one that I'm pretty confident they wanted in Jacob Fowler being only as high as a theoretical #71 overall pick.
I suspect this will continue for the Sharks. Goaltenders are getting drafted in the second round and beyond way more often than the early 2000s. First round goalies are just rarer.
Maybe the pressure of having no high-end prospect goalie changes this. Next year the Sharks are lined up with two firsts and a presumably high second. Do we see a goalie with that early second?
I'd guess:
Sharks first rounder - Consensus star pick in the top 10, possibly defender
Vegas first rounder - Offensive defenseman
Sharks second rounder - big, skilled but flawed forward
We got a whole year to gather more picks though, and a ton of hype over this upcoming group of prospects. I'm excited to write up the prospect rankings over the next couple months, so I'll see you all then!
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