2024 Draft Recap: San Jose Sharks
2024 Draft Recap: San Jose Sharks
Star center Macklin Celebrini became the first No. 1 pick in franchise history, but the Sharks secured additional top-flight assets in what could be their deepest draft class in over two decades.
NASHVILLE (The Draft Analyst) — Those familiar with my work know how I feel about draft report cards, even if I’ve been guilty of feeding that beast throughout the last 10 years. But my thoughts on the latest 2024 results will be more than broad brush strokes, as pinning the rose on 12 uninterrupted months of in-depth analysis from both the team and prospect standpoints requires more than the standard letter-grade marking scheme acting as the rubric. Rather, draft hauls will be evaluated and labeled on the following criteria, which I think are both fair and reasonable:
Strong — Any four of potential franchise player(s) drafted; needs addressed; first-round caliber picks in the second or third round; multiple home-run swings in later rounds; point-producing sleepers; the majority of prospects were in top-line/top-pairing/starter roles (Ex. Buffalo’s 2022 draft)
Above-average - Any three of needs addressed; multiple home-run swings; acknowledged consensus favorites; the majority of prospects were in top-line/top-pairing/starter roles; making more with less; first-round quality in the second or third round. (Ex. Carolina’s 2023 draft)
Average — A solid first- or second-round pick but mostly unspectacular thereafter (Ex. Colorado’s 2020 draft)
Below-average — Quantity over quality; over-drafting of higher-round picks/reaching; four picks or less with no first-round selection; obsession with overagers (Ex. New York Rangers’ 2018 draft or Ottawa’s drafts from 2021-2023)
Poor — Any three of unpopular reach in the first round, no picks in the first or second round; needs not addressed, obsession with overagers, leaving upside on the board for projects, or bucking popular consensus choices (Ex. Arizona’s 2020 draft)
Outlook
There is no mystery surrounding the San Jose Sharks and where they are as a franchise. Unlike most non-playoff teams, the Sharks are neither mired in mediocrity nor improving incrementally since their fall from grace following a visit to the 2019 Western Conference Final. Everything since has been entirely disappointing, as they haven’t had a winning record in five years after being stretchered off with a league-worst .287 points percentage — their weakest effort in 28 years — in their most recent fiasco.
Although it is certainly possible that last season’s spectacular futility was the nadir of this rare but predictable downturn for an otherwise accomplished NHL franchise, San Jose was able to bank off its misery nonetheless by winning the draft lottery for the first time in their history. Already in possession of a quality farm system that was carefully cultivated and nurtured by third-year general manager Mike Grier, the Sharks’ anticlimactic addition of a second franchise-caliber center in Macklin Celebrini with the No. 1 pick only one year after securing prolific playmaker Will Smith at fourth overall was sure to boost offseason morale but do little in immediately rescuing San Jose from out of the Western Conference gutter.
As such, the only realistic hope for salvation in 2024-25 is an across-the-board improvement in practically every area, but with a mostly store-bought roster at bargain-basement prices. The kids they’re banking on to someday rescue the franchise should arrive in greater numbers by midseason, especially now that top-line center Tomas Hertl was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights and oft-injured team captain Logan Couture will start the season on injured reserve. But Grier’s godsends from each of the last three drafts are too green to label as saviors, thereby placing the fate of another season on the skates and pads of an otherwise motley collection of veteran stopgaps, half of whom are likely to be playing elsewhere by the trade deadline.
For all of Grier’s accumulating of fresh-faced hopefuls while continuing to punt away his pricier veterans to anyone desperate enough to take on salary, he should have been expected to enter the 2024 draft with valid concerns regarding the state of what already was a solid farm system, but one with average prospect depth on defense. To his credit, Grier has already made it a point to rectify the suboptimal situation that he inherited by drafting as many defensemen (seven) in his first two drafts as his predecessor Doug Wilson did in his final five. If anything is similar between the two managers, however, it was that Grier has continued Wilson’s avoidance of defensemen with his first-round picks, as the Sharks entered the 2024 proceedings having selected only two — Ryan Merkley in 2018 and Mirco Muller in 2013 — on the first day of the previous 16 drafts.
Mentioning this may sound nit-picking, but the Sharks aren’t rebuilding in a vacuum, and most of the teams from the far reaches of the Western Conference playoff picture and even several on the fringes entered the weekend either already owning at least one franchise-caliber defense prospect or possessed a deep and promising collection. Additionally, the Sharks continue to rank near the bottom in nearly every critical metric — traditional and advanced — that pertains to defense. Last season marked the first time since 1995-96 that San Jose finished dead last in goals allowed. Any GM who adds these together would be hard-pressed not to make defensemen a draft-day priority weeks before the event even took place.
Another consideration for Grier is the equally disappointing state of his AHL affiliate, which has missed the playoffs in three straight seasons and hasn’t posted a winning record since 2019. Of course, it would be unreasonable to expect a quick fix from the 2024 draft class, but selecting a couple of later-round prospects with moderate AHL upside isn’t entirely irresponsible for a team that gets pushed around as often as the parent club. Now, I know what you’re thinking — why should the worst team in the league waste draft picks on low-ceiling types when older, battle-tested options can be had via free agency or even AHL deals? Again, it’s about creating tougher competition, and peer-to-peer tends to be more spirited. If this were Grier’s line of thinking, I’d say it’s neither flawed nor unprecedented.
Traded Picks
Possessing a second lottery pick after already winning the first overall selection is an advantage few teams have enjoyed since the turn of the century. To be more specific, only three times between 2000 and 2023 did a team own the No. 1 pick and an additional Round 1 selection previously owned by a non-playoff club — the New York Islanders did so in 2000 and 2009, and the Buffalo Sabres the last to do it in 2021. Grier essentially added the Sharks to this exclusive list two offseasons ago when his roster deconstruction included sending 100-point defenseman Erik Karlsson to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who proceeded to record their worst regular-season finish in 18 years. A top-10 protected first-rounder in 2024 was the highlight of an otherwise unspectacular return, and Grier soon found himself in possession of the 14th overall pick after the Penguins lost the ensuing lottery draw on May 7.
Grier, like any GM with critical situations to address during the offseason, offered little insight into his intentions with the 14th pick in the days leading up to the draft. But his feverish behavior along the breadth trade front since taking over should have left little to the imagination beyond the names involved and how much those names were going to cost. What may have come as a surprise, however, was the frequency of what could be considered a series of preemptive strikes, beginning with his June 19 acquisition of Dallas Stars depth center Ty Dellandrea for a 2025 fourth-round pick in 2025. Four days later, Grier continued his purge of the farm system he inherited with a seemingly lateral move that sent 2020 first-round pick Ozzy Wiesblatt to the Nashville Predators for former 2019 second-rounder Egor Afanaseyev, both of whom have been stuck in the AHL for several years.
Still days away from the actual draft itself, Grier took advantage of another team with salary cap constraints by taking pricey puck-rushing defenseman Jake Walman (and his second-half vanishing act) from the Detroit Red Wings with an added second-round pick (53rd overall) for the obligatory future considerations, which we all know as the industry term for giving someone away for nothing. And for the cherry on top of one of the busiest pre-draft weeks we’ve seen a GM have in the salary cap era, Grier dealt physical everyday defenseman Kyle Burroughs to the rival Los Angeles Kings for abrasive winger Carl Grundstrom; Four trades in a little less than nine days, and all before the draft was officially underway.
Yet still, Grier was far from done, as he orchestrated a significant trade on the first day of the draft that could have far greater implications on how the Sharks perform over the majority of the next decade. With his overall situation already blinking bright green following the selection of Macklin Celebrini with the No. 1 pick, Grier jumped at the chance to draft one of the top defensemen in the class after four had already been taken within the first 10 slots. Using his 14th overall pick from Pittsburgh and the high second-rounder (42nd overall) from the Timo Meier trade with New Jersey, Grier convinced the Buffalo Sabres to drop down three spots from 11th overall and allow the Sharks to draft a potential top-pairing blueliner in lefty Sam Dickinson.
Grier, unlike several GMs, never fully admitted to the press in the lead-up that his prospect depth on the blue line needed a shot in the arm, especially on the right side. But we can now assume that Grier intended to draft a defenseman with the 14th pick almost immediately after winning the Celebrini sweepstakes in early May, and for several reasons.
For starters, each of the heralded defensemen firmly ensconced in the Class of ‘24’s top tier -- Dickinson, Carter Yakemchuk, Zayne Parekh, Zeev Buium, Artyom Levshunov, and Anton Silayev – had higher upside than any one individual rearguard already within San Jose’s pipeline. Additionally, San Jose scouts as early as two or three years ago should have identified the 2024 crop as being deeper on elite defenders than any draft since 2018, and it should be implied that they articulated this to Grier, a scout himself with a seemingly better-than-average grasp on specifics regarding each of the top prospects.
There also was the at-that-moment development when it looked like forwards were going to dominate the top 10, thereby pushing at least two of the coveted defensemen into the early teens but into the laps of teams who could have logically and justifiably favored a blueliner as both the best player available and one who satisfied an organizational need, specifically Philadelphia at 12th overall and Minnesota one spot later, each of whom was picking immediately before the Sharks at 14th overall.
If panic was ever going to set in among Shark scouts, it probably happened when the New Jersey Devils, a team who had recently drafted defensemen Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec in the top five in 2021 and 2022, respectively, took Silayev at 10th overall, leaving only Dickinson and Buium available to run the proverbial gauntlet of the Sabres at 11, the Flyers at 12, and the Wild at 13 before the Sharks were able to step to the podium. Luckily for Grier and his scouts, the Sabres had neither the need nor the room to take on another premier defense prospect just months after they added Bowen Byram (fourth overall in 2019) to a blue line that already included former No. 1 picks Rasmus Dahlin (2018) and Owen Power (2021). By trading up to 11 at the cost of a second-round pick he could afford to deal, Grier clearly left nothing to chance, and the fact that Minnesota traded up with Philadelphia to grab Buium immediately thereafter creates another layer of speculation that identifies the Flyers as being equally hot for Dickinson – a London teammate of Philly prospects Oliver Bonk and Denver Barkey -- and were forced to trade down and draft center Jett Luchanko once Dickinson was unavailable. Again, it's pure speculation on my end, but conceivable nonetheless.
We can now put names to each player and pick from San Jose’s massive return from the New Jersey Devils in last year’s Timo Meier trade that combined to involve 13 players. But before we go there, here’s a quick rundown and update on everything that went the Sharks’ way from New Jersey:
-Fabian Zetterlund, RW — Led the Sharks with 24 goals and was second in hits among forwards.
-Shakir Mukhamadullin, D — San Jose Barracuda MVP and challenging for a bottom-pair role with the Sharks in 2024-25.
-Nikita Okhotyuk, D — Appeared on 43 games for San Jose (one goal, seven assists in 16:27 of ice time) before being moved to the Calgary Flames at the 2024 trade deadline for a 2024 fifth-round pick that the Sharks used to draft two-way defenseman Colton Roberts at 131st overall. Okhotyuk is expected to play the full season with the Flames.
-Andreas Johnsson, LW -- Played in 11 games for the Sharks after the trade but signed with the Pittsburgh Penguins later that offseason. He now plays in Sweden.
-2023 first-round pick (26th overall) — The Sharks drafted skilled power forward Quentin Musty, who last season posted 102 points in 53 games for the OHL’s Sudbury Wolves and is considered one of the top winger prospects in hockey.
-2024 second-round pick (42nd overall) — This pick was packaged by San Jose with the 14th overall selection (previously acquired from Pittsburgh) to move up to 11th overall and draft two-way defenseman Sam Dickinson.
-2024 seventh-round pick (203rd overall) — This pick was packaged with defenseman Radim Simek to the Detroit Red Wings for power forward Klim Kostin, who had 10 points in 19 games with San Jose and is expected to be a regular in 2024-25.
Final tally of the Timo Meier trade
To New Jersey:
-Timo Meier, RW -Timur Ibragimov, RW (not signed) -Scott Harrington, D (Europe) -Zach Emond, GK (not signed) -Santeri Hatakka, GK (signed) -2024 fifth-round pick (Previously Colorado's from the Andrew Cogliano deal; New Jersey packaged this to Utah to move up and draft goalie Mikhail Yegorov at 49th overall; Utah drafted defenseman Ales Cech at 153rd overall)
To San Jose:
-Fabian Zetterlund, RW -Klim Kostin, RW -Quentin Musty, LW -Shakir Mukhamadullin, D -Colton Roberts, D -2024 second-rounder used to move up and draft defenseman Sam Dickinson.
Additional Notes
-The second-round pick Grier acquired from the Detroit Red Wings (along with Jake Walman) which he used to draft blueline playmaker Leo Sahlin-Wallenius at 53rd overall was linked to the Sharks before the trade was even announced. Tampa Bay, the original owner of the pick, flipped it to Nashville at the 2023 trade deadline in the infamous six-for-one Tanner Jeannot trade. Detroit would acquire just over a year later from the Predators with winger prospect Jesse Kiiskinen for defense prospect Andrew Gibson before moving it to the Sharks that same day. The link is actually Kiiskinen, who was drafted by Nashville in the third round in 2022 with the pick it acquired from San Jose with John Leonard for Luke Kunin.
-The Anaheim Ducks drafted skilled winger Maxim Masse with San Jose’s 2024 third-round pick (66th overall), which the Sharks used to acquire the rights of defenseman Henry Thrun on Feb. 28, 2023.
-San Jose used the 2024 third-rounder it acquired from Tampa Bay in last season’s Anthony Duclair trade to move up from 85 to 82 and draft power forward Carson Wetsch, with the 85th pick and an extra 2025 sixth-rounder sent to the New Jersey Devils. Abrasive Finnish winger Kasper Pikkarainen was taken by New Jersey at 85.
-The Sharks drafted impressive Swiss goalie Christian Kirsch at 116th overall with the 2024 fourth-round pick they acquired from the Vegas Golden Knights for goalie Adin Hill.
-Utah selected tough Rogle J20 defender Gregor Biber with the 2024 fourth-round pick (98th overall) San Jose shipped to the then-Arizona Coyotes way back in 2021 for minor-league center Lane Pederson, who is now with the Edmonton Oilers
-The Montreal Canadiens took overage center Tyler Thorpe from the WHL’s Vancouver Giants with San Jose’s 2024 fifth-rounder (130th overall) as part of the three-team trade that sent veteran center Nick Bonino to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Also involved in that deal was Pittsburgh’s 2024 fifth-round pick (143rd overall), which the Sharks used to draft two-way defenseman Nate Misskey.
-San Jose used the well-travelled 2024 fifth-rounder it received from the Calgary Flames (via the Chicago Blackhawks followed by the Vancouver Canucks) in the Nikita Okhotyuk trade to select two-way defenseman Colton Roberts at 131st overall. As already mentioned, Okhotyuk was part of the return from the Devils in the Timo Meier deal.
-Vancouver drafted overage OHL winger Anthony Romani with the 2024 sixth-round pick (162nd overall) the Canucks received from San Jose for minor-league center Jack Studnicka, who is now with the Los Angeles Kings organization.
-The Red Wings drafted gritty NTDP forward Austin Baker with the Sharks’ 2024 seventh-round pick that was sent to Detroit (along with veteran defenseman Radim Simek) for power forward Klim Kostin at the 2024 trade deadline. This pick previously belonged to New Jersey and was included in the Meier package.
Drafted Picks
Assessment: Strong draft
Perhaps it’s a little early for measuring ring sizes from the multiple Stanley Cups Macklin Celebrini is supposed to win for the Sharks but listening to his general manager talk about “exciting” times in San Jose beyond being gifted a franchise-changing prospect makes you think he might actually be onto something. You could say that Mike Grier was just offering up the usual post-draft GM speak, but as already mentioned, the odds that a team leaves the first night of the draft with a potential all-star center and a defenseman with Norris Trophy written all over him are almost always slim to none. As you should expect, the Sharks will be neither nit-picked nor harangued over not doing this or woulda-could-shoulda with that -- The first round of the draft wasn’t even halfway complete when San Jose secured both Celebrini and defenseman Sam Dickinson, the latter doing his part and then some to be considered the best defense prospect in what could be a historic top-tier of blueliners.
Of course, the Sharks have been graded favorably in every post-draft assessment since 2021, which marked the beginning of what the pessimist will call the franchise’s darkest period in nearly three decades. But take my word for it, the picks they’ve made in that same span should have been given the stamp of public approval each time, and any analyst worth his salt will dig beyond the layups in the top half of the first round, which is why you’re probably here in the first place.
Knowing what we already know about Celebrini and Dickinson makes it easy to skip over to Day 2, where the Sharks entered the morning with plenty of ammunition to address needs and take big swings. But before getting into San Jose’s, Day 2 selections, it’s important to recall Grier’s admission (a story almost in itself) during one of his pre-draft press conferences that the Sharks were going to address what many considered to be substandard goalie depth. That’s certainly a nice, grammar-school way to put it, but don’t you dare bring up goalie prospects to a Sharks fan, especially if a sharp objects happens to be within arm’s reach. Kidding aside, few teams have been as ghastly as the Sharks when it comes to drafting goalies, as it’s been 16 years since the last San Jose draft class produced an actual NHL netminder (Harri Sateri), and 19 years to find one who managed to play for the damn team who drafted him (Alex Stalock).
OHL-bound winger Igor Chernyshov at 33rd overall is essentially a first-round pick, much like Finnish sniper Kasper Halttunen at 36th a year ago and center Cam Lund at 34th overall in 2022. But Chernyshov has the highest upside of the three and it’s possible the dual-threat forward slipped out of the first round because of injury concerns and his KHL contract, which is now moot since Chernyshov is recovering from offseason shoulder surgery and will play for the OHL’s Saginaw Spirit (presumably alongside Sharks’ 2023 first-rounder Quentin Musty) once he’s cleared to play.
There isn’t a whole lot Chernyshov can’t do with the puck and like Musty exudes confidence and creativity while powering through traffic. You should also consider San Jose’s recent drafting of three power wingers within top 40 as complimentary responses to their selections of centers with the higher picks — Celebrini/Chernyshov, Will Smith/Musty, and Filip Bystedt/Halttunen. On paper, those are three of the best 1-2 punches in the prospect world.
Defenseman Leo Sahlin-Wallenius, or simply LSW if you’re into the whole brevity thing, was another first-round quality prospect the Sharks were able snag in the second round, thereby making it four indisputable best-player-available picks out of four. No, the left-handed LSW isn’t in the same tier as Dickinson in terms of IQ and defensive-zone coverage. But a goal-scoring, point-producing defenseman he is nonetheless, even if his power-play quarterbacking suffered through minor stretches of “daaaaaamn-son” moments.
Still, the kid has size and can reliably skate the puck up ice, thereby adding balance to the Shark defense pool with another playmaker. Now, you might be wondering about the logic behind taking a lefty instead of a righty, but the better ones of the latter were already gone by 53 and those still available would have been a reach. Sahlin-Wallenius might have a tough time jumping Dickinson, Shakir Mukhamadullin, and Luca Cagnoni among lefty puck-rushers in San Jose’s system, but it’s still a solid pick any way you slice it.
Another pick with a story behind it was San Jose’s selection of soft-mitted power winger Carson Wetsch at 82nd overall. Although the WHL’er was drafted close to where he was predicted, the Sharks had to trade up from 85th overall with the New Jersey Devils (who drafted tough winger Kasper Pikkarainen at 85) to obtain him at a cost of a 2025 sixth-rounder. Both forwards are wingers who play the skill game and create when they aren’t throwing their weight around or getting under the opposition’s skin. Although I had Pikkarainen ranked 10 spots ahead of Wetsch in my final ranking and consider them too close to fork over a sixth-rounder, the Sharks under Grier have never been shy toward assuming risk, great or small. Each will be playing in the WHL this season so maybe we’ll see a little rivalry develop.
The Bay Area Goalie Watch resumed in the fourth round with the selection of athletic Swiss backstop Christian Kirsch, who performed admirably under intense firepower at several under-18 events during his draft year. Poor kid probably has no clue about the puzzling and unfortunate history that links his new employers with some of the worst goalie development the league has seen in the post-lockout era, which makes his decision to play in the USHL this season and UMass-Amherst thereafter all the more wiser since he can protect himself for at least five more seasons.
The first potential steal of San Jose’s 2024 draft happened in the fifth round, where the Sharks took smooth righty defender Colton Roberts with the 131st pick they received from Calgary in the Nikita Okhotyuk trade. You should have read the history behind this selection in the previous section, but that is less relevant than the prospect himself, who was ranked 73rd in top 100 and the size (6-foot-4), footwork, and playmaking to generate offense, albeit at the expense of actual defending. Still, there are may ways to justify the pick beyond Roberts’ generally high ranking on NHL Central Scouting’s final list (36th among North American skaters), beginning with slight regression by a few recent righty prospects already in the San Jose system and the loss of Ty Emberson. Yes, the right side already had pop with the addition of Jack Thompson in the Anthony Duclair trade with Tampa and both Eric Pohlkamp and Mattias Havelid maintaining an upward trajectory. But Roberts is skilled enough to challenge any of them, even if it might take him longer due to his occasional missteps in coverage and not using his body as effectively as he should.
The Sharks went the overage route with each of their final two picks, but both prospects are capable of shedding any limitation associated with prospects hitting despite requiring multiple looks at the draft. The first at 143rd overall is slick WHL defender Nate Misskey, a righty with shooting prowess who just began his fourth season with the Victoria Royals and should be a candidate to finish among the leaders in defense scoring (along with teammate and 2026 draft prospect Keaton Verhoeff).
The other is Russian goalie Yaroslav Korostelyov at 194th overall — the only pick after Celebrini and Chernyshov that actually belonged to the Sharks from the start. Anyway, Korostelyov is more of a project than your average late-round goalie in that he has yet to be a full-fledged No. 1 at the junior level, even after being drafted. The good news is two-fold — for starters, he is part of a three-headed monster with contending SKA-1946 in Russia’s top junior league and is off to a good start through Oct. 1. He also turned 19 in August, meaning he can stay in junior hockey for at least two more seasons before aging up to the VHL, KHL, or North America. His style is quite aggressive as he uses his stick a bunch and challenges well above the top of the crease, requiring a near-perfect shot to beat him from distance. The fact that he’s in Russia is a good thing, meaning it should be a while before we know if he’ll suffer the same fate as all those Spinal Tap drummers, er, lieutenants in Vietnam, umm sorry, I meant Sharks’ goalie prospects.