State of the Sharks: Mike Grier Pre-Draft Part 1

State of the Sharks: Mike Grier Pre-Draft Part 1

so Mike we’re just a couple days ahead of the draft and there’s so many things to think about and picks and trades and I’m sure all the research and effort that you and your team have put into this is there also some pressure to get this draft right whatever right means to you um I I don’t think so i don’t really I don’t think our our I think we feel prepared our our scouts do a really good job um Chris Moout Chris Mohouse and um Scott Fitzgerald they do a really good job making sure we have the coverage we need and the scouts are doing the work and doing their job and you know they’ve been tireless on the road watching these kids and everything so um yeah I don’t think we feel pressure it’s every draft we’ve we’ve had here with Chris and those guys it’s been you know 3 years we you know we’ll have meetings uh tomorrow and Thursday and you know when Friday comes I think we’ll be we’ll be really prepared and you know from there you know we’ll just see how the the draft goes and how the board falls you mentioned some names in that inner circle when you have those conversations do you like some healthy debate on what they’ve seen or interests you have do you like everybody to agree in the end or do you like there to be some diversity in opinions uh I think diversity is is is healthy um you know I I don’t think I never want one voice to kind of overshadow the room and be too loud and other and other um people not afraid to speak up so I think we’ve as a group we’ve kind of done a good job of trying to make it an environment where everyone feels comfortable speaking up and sharing their view and their opinion and um I think that’s the best way um to kind of eliminate some complacency where you know it’s just one guy making the decisions and so we’ll uh they do the work we’ll talk it through we’ll debate it we’ll have some probably some arguments and then uh you know it’s kind of up up to uh you know Chris and myself to kind of put the board together the way we want to at the end of at the end of it all but everyone will have a have an equal set who is in that inner circle i know I’m not so who are the decision makers who are the influencers i mean when you guys talk about the most detailed and and intimate parts of of what you might do who’s involved in those conversations um you know for the draft um it’s it’s really at the end of the day it’s it’s uh Chris Fitzy and myself really um you know Joe Tom and and Chloe will um you know they’ll obviously have a say on you know on a lot of the things but um you know the three of us of Chris uh Fitzy and myself we’ll we’ll all we’ll sit down probably Thursday night and and go over it ourselves and and um you know kind of work it out one last time yeah this has been months in the making right i mean that’s fair to say yeah i mean even uh you know it’s goes back to to the year before you know there’s always reports on these kids as underagers um so a lot of these kids they’ve been in tournaments been seen in tournaments for for two years now so it’s a pretty good book um but for the scouts it’s you know it starts in uh you know it’ll start the end of July at the summer world junior summer showcase and then you have Helinka the beginning of August so these guys have been going non-stop basically for 10 months you mentioned the book you have out on players i would assume that’s on the ice their performance their skill set how do you really feel like you know a kid as a draft pick when you’re picking them do you actually know them do you think you know them do you do you try and gauge the personal side as well as as who they are as a hockey player yeah the personal side’s really important for us um you know uh the character um their fa you know their family we try and learn as much as we can about them um you know we’ll talk to their their strength coach their skating coaches um you know even going back to maybe their their coaches in BAM hockey uh wow so we’ll talk to all their coaches all the way up and you know all the people that they spend time with and try and get as much information as we

Brodie Brazil sits down with Sharks General Manager Mike Grier to talk all things 2025 NHL Draft ahead of the weekend.