Teal Talk: Drew Remenda

Teal Talk: Drew Remenda

Drew, it’s great to see you. Literally, I mean that. I’m not just saying that. Appreciate that. Another big Sharks draft, including selecting Michael Misa, second overall. Um, there’s just a lot of excitement here. There’s so much excitement that sometimes I have to remind myself it still takes a while. Like, I’m I’m an impatient person. I want this process to go quickly. How do you feel about just seeing the continuation of growth and hopefully the progress? I was optimistic last year about what was happening. Yeah. And I’m even more optimistic now because of you, you talk about Misa and then Dickinson’s going to get his shot, right? Yaroslav’s now going to become the number one guy, right? Year under the belt of Will and and Mlin. Colin Graph last year was a spectacular surprise. Absolutely. Yes. And so I’m really excited about this year again. And I’m not, as you know, an or overly optimistic guy. I’m not a hey the sun’s shining. It’s a good day. But we’ve won you over. You have won me over. I like what’s happening here. Yeah. Um it’s hard not to be excited and we’ve been around this team for a long long time. And you know, we know how hard it is to when the guys were winning, when they were great, when they were always in a contention. And we’ve also been around where we know how hard it is when they’re losing all the time. But it feels like you know through the darkness and now you see so much light so many lights I should put it that way that was it’s starting to be now it’s not just one guy or two guys now it is a group of guys and and you’re starting to see the the uh objective of becoming that team again. Yeah. Really starting to take for it. This team found itself in a lot of I’ll say 50/50 third periods last year. Tie game, close game, whatever, and then it just got away, went the other way. If there is such a thing as learning how to win, maybe you want this team to find themselves in those same spots this year. And find a way to win those third periods. 100%. Are they that close to finding a way to win? I mean, that’s easier said than done. Well, they should be. Yeah, they should be. When you look what they went through last year, did you learn any lessons? Number one, you know, they always say, “Well, sports teaches you about lessons. It teaches you lessons.” No, it doesn’t. It shows you there’s an opportunity to learn there, but you have to have people who understand the situation and be able to point out this is what we’ve got to do better in order to make sure that doesn’t happen again. So, they should be in a more confidence, well, not confident, but a more understanding of what they have to do in order to be successful. They’ve got enough veterans here who have had success in their NHL careers, who have gone through this that should be able to help. I love the additions that they have made. Yeah. And they should be better. They must be better. They have to be better if they want to get be a be a team that’s going to have more wins and they want to start flirting with talking about playoffs and we’re talking about, you know, in February and and late February or early March talking about playoffs. Then they’ve got to make sure that they understand and not only understand the lessons from the past, but are able to correct the the problems that they had. I’ve been here long enough to have this conversation with you. Who replaces Rob Blake as captain? Then who replaces Joe Thornton as captain? Who replaces Joe Pavvelski as captain? Now it’s who replaces Logan Couture as captain. I don’t want you to name a name, but I do want you to tell me how you hate the how important questions. How important is is this process to a team to do this and to get it right? Sorry, I can’t believe I love the fact that you asked that and I love the fact I like when guys asked the question of how important to get to get off to a good start. Obviously, it’s not it’s not important at all. We don’t need to. Um the I used to say this, captaincies only matter when your team’s not very good. Mhm. And the team’s not yet where we want it to be. So captaincy matters. Now when you have great teams, when you have teams with Patty and Joe and Brent Burns and Danny Bole and you have Gideon Bachoff and Rob Blake and all those guys, you had so many guys who were leaders who were alpha dogs who you had that group that you know our core leadership group. You heard how many times did we hear that a lot, right? But that is important, right? It’s not just about this game is so great because it’s not just about one guy, right? for the Sharks. You have to have though two or three guys who can be those guys. Mario, Barkley, Tyler have to be three guys who really step up for me. And and you can even look at, you know, you you look at um Nick Letty being here. You can look at Clingberg being here, Skinner being here. You got to you’ve got to have those guys that have been around who will assume leadership roles even if they don’t have an A or C. But as far as your seed goes, he’s got to be a guy who has that experience. And I think you need one um for the Sharks right now. I think you need that guy. Although last year the guys that did it, you know, Mario being one of those guys is such a great leader, such a big personality and such a guy, a guy who’s changed his game. He’s no longer the jokester. He still has fun. He’s still got the laughs and everything else, but he’s not about jokes anymore. He’s about playing serious, but making sure he knows when to lighten up. But I think you need that figurehead that has to be a guy who’s got gravitas, who’s got experience, who’s got um respect throughout the room. Goaliewise with Ascarov in there probably assuming some role and Adelovich also coming in assuming some role. Let’s just say that’s the that the one-two tandem right now. Um two guys that play the puck in Ned’s case, shoots the puck, scores the puck. Uh it’s going to be an interesting goalie situation. one I don’t think we’ve seen in quite some time. That’s another thing not too many people are talking about. I can’t wait to see whatever the tandem looks like. Well, absolutely. Um, as you know, I know you are too. Huge Ylavascarov fans. Love them. Um, absolutely. And love the personality. I love the fact that last year um, you know, I did a bunch of Cuda games and got to do the playoffs. His goals against average, I think, was below two. I think it was 194 in the playoffs. Dipped it down. Yeah. and and um they lost in six games. They didn’t have they didn’t have the health that they needed, but that shows you how good this guy is and can be and he’s going to get us now. He’s going to be what we think he’s going to be the number one guy. I love his fight. I love his competitiveness. I love his attitude. Um I think he’s, you know, Nashville doesn’t miss on many goalies when they draft. They only had to give him up because they didn’t have room for him and he was a first round draft choice and I’m looking forward to him. Uh Nadulkovich I I don’t know very well. Obviously you you look at him and you like you say guy who loves to play the puck as a veteran goalender. He scored a goal in the ECHL, AHL and the NHL. I think he’s the only one to do it. Exactly. It’s fantastic. So I’m looking forward to seeing these two guys. And again, if you have those guys, you know, it’s like as far as if you have a goalender that the guys have confidence in. Yes. Changes the whole landscape. Exactly. Exactly. Changes everything. and and and how much how many times has Sharks been able to rally around a goalie? A lot of times we’ve we’ve been very fortunate in this organization to have terrific goalenders. I can’t wait. Can you wait? I’m excited for this. I I am Joe. I can’t wait for it either. It’s like I said, I’m not an overly optimistic person and but I’m looking forward to seeing what what we’re going to see this year. I think it’s going to be a a year where we’re like, “Yeah, okay, for sure.” Can we put a C on a suit? Can we do that? Yeah. It’ll be the last guy you talk to. No, no, no. Be the gray hair guy.

Brodie Brazil talks about the upcoming season with Sharks color analyst Drew Remenda.