Early Look at San Jose Sharks 25-26 Forward Lines

Early Look at San Jose Sharks 25-26 Forward Lines

class is now in session. I’m Professor Hockey and today we’ll be discussing a very early look at what the San Jose Sharks forward lines could look like heading into the beginning of the upcoming 2526 season. Mike has made a couple of additions in this area that will shake up this forward group and so let us start off with their top six and my initial reaction was to have Eklan Cabbrini to Foley together as their top line. It is the group that they went into the beginning of last season with. It is one that they then used multiple times throughout the season. there’s already some chemistry there and so it seems like a very easy and obvious choice for their top trio. But the thing is is that when you place these three players together, what then becomes immediately obvious is the lack of depth that the Sharks actually have within their top six this next year. Because if you go back to last season, the Sharks had Ekkan Cabrini Deoley together. And their second line still featured Will Smith at center, but he was being flanked by Male Granland and Fabian Zedtherland players who are at the very least surfaceable in this position in the case of Zetherland or can actually excel in it in the case of Granland. And yet both of them are now gone. Granland was traded at around the halfway mark of the season to the Dallas Stars and then just recently signed a new contract with the Anaheim Ducks. and Zertherland was inexplicably traded at this year’s deadline to the Ottawa Senators. It’s kind of funny because the report is now that the Sharks are in the market searching for another top nine forward to add to this group and Zetherland would have been the perfect top nine forward to have for that position and the player that they did get back, Zack Stapuk plays a role that the Sharks are not desperately in need of. So, the trade now a few months later doesn’t really look any better than it did when it happened. But not really the point here of this video. The point is is that you would rather have these two reliable wingers to be able to surround Will Smith with on this second line. Because the thing is is that Smith did have a very strong end to this past season. He was one of the Sharks best players over the final 35 or so games of the season, but that occurred while he was playing on the wing. He had started last season as a center, but after the first few games when it clearly wasn’t working out, they pushed him to a bit of an easier spot here on the wing. And that’s where he saw a lot of his player growth. But because he is a natural center and he wants to play in this position, the Sharks are putting him back there to start this next season or are expected, I should say, to put him back there to start this next season. However, that would mean that Will Smith is kind of starting from square one yet again. And it’s not entirely the case cuz obviously some of the teachings and learnings from just playing in the NHL in general will still help him out here, but playing center is very different and more difficult than it is to play the wing. And so there is very possibly going to still be an adjustment period to start off the season. And you would want that to be happening with wingers that could definitely support him, which the Sharks don’t really have if you have Eklan and Defoley on that top line cuz your two next best options here it seems would be Philip Kurichev and Colin Graph. Two players who I wouldn’t really call all that reliable. I do like Colin Graph as a player, but he’s only played 40 games in the NHL thus far, and from what we have seen this past season, he is likely better served being a third liner. We saw him get some second line opportunities near the end of this past year, but not exactly someone who excelled in that position. Now, you never know, perhaps he could take some significant strides this off season. It’s exactly what happened last year. If you recall, he was not even really looking like much of an NHL player in his short stent to end off the 232 or yeah, the 2324 year, but then he managed to have a great off season to where he looked like a very solid bottom six guy this past year. So maybe that again happens and he ends up being a second liner for this upcoming season, but I wouldn’t necessarily expect that to be the case. On the other side, we have Philip Kurishv who a couple of years ago managed to put up over 50 points while playing with Conor Bard on the Chicago Blackhawks. But every other season surrounding that one was a lot more underwhelming, including this most recent year where while giving the chance to retain his spot with Bard at the beginning of the season, he slowly fell down the lineup to a point where he was actually a relatively frequent healthy scratch near the end of the season. And the Blackhawks didn’t even feel it necessary to give him a qualifying offer, which is the reason why the Sharks were able to sign him as a free agent in the first place. And so you can hope that he finds his game and becomes that 50point player yet again, but I certainly wouldn’t guarantee it either, just in like in the case of Graph. And so having these two players play with Will Smith, you’re putting a lot of that pressure onto Smith to really drive this line, something he has not done at the center position in the NHL just yet in his career. So it’s probably not an optimal setup. As such, I have decided to separate Eklland CBrun to Foley. I suspect that that will be something that will occur at the beginning of this next season. So, I still have Ekkan and Celbrini together as a duo here and I have them being joined by Kurishv. So, Celabbrini, we know very well-rounded game, great offensively, likely the best player on the Sharks offensively. Also can be very solid defensively. You’re expecting them to take some steps forward there for this upcoming season. Wins a tons of B wins a ton of battles. Can carry the puck into the zone. Does basically everything well. So that will be a great player. Ekklund is then arguably one of the Sharks best, if not their best, defensive forward. Also can contribute offensively and win some battles. Both of these players will handle the tougher assignments on this top line. And so hopefully Kurichev can kind of be a little bit more unbburdened to just sort of play his own way and see if he can find that 50point game that he had a couple of years ago. I imagine he’ll be given a very short leash here. I don’t think Worsoft’s going to give him a couple of months to be able to figure this out on the top line. if after a few games it’s not working out, he’ll fall down the lineup just as he did last season with Chicago. But to start off, he’ll probably be given the position to find that type of success. And I think it would be most likely to pop up playing with these two top names, CBrini and Eklland. Then on the second line, that’s where I have Tofo here playing with Will Smith. It’s not as though Tofuli is the most well-rounded player that’s perfectly going to complement Smith, but at the very least, he is a very good scorer, which will help with Will Smith’s playmaking ability to be able to create some offense on this line. And just that veteran presence, the chemistry that they have together should be more beneficial than surrounding him with two younger guys. And then Colin Graph here now that he’s not having to have as much pressure on him to put up the offense can be more of that defensive element on this third line which will be good because neither Smith nor Foley actually excel in that area and can hopefully chip in a few points here or there. A bit of a better setup and more of a spreading the love type of situation here within the Sharks top six. Now, there is one player who could end up complicating this situation, though in a good way of course, and that is Michael Misa, the Shark’s second overall pick from just a couple of weeks ago. He was viewed as perhaps the most NHL ready talent in that entire draft. And so, there is definitely a possibility he could make his NHL debut with the Sharks to begin this next season. But it’s a bit of a complicated situation here for Michael Misa because his fall back if not making it to the NHL was to play a year in the NCAA. But to do that, it needs to be the case that he does not have a professional contract. But the thing is is that for a player hoping to make the jump to the NHL, you would naturally want them to show up to training camp, get some preseason games, maybe even play a few games in the NHL regular season up to nine to be able to still slide their entry level contract. But to do that, he would actually need a contract. And that would mean that college would be completely off the table. An attempt to try and make it to the team and play some games there would mean that his fallback would have to be heading back to juniors with Sagena. Something that I don’t think is in his best interest. And I don’t think the Sharks want to do either. And so a decision of whether or not he actually wants to take that leap of faith to attempt to make it to the NHL would need to come sooner rather than later, probably within the next few weeks. Now, I would hope that he could find a way to the NHL. I think it would be exciting. It’s kind of a selfish point of view, but is the case. But I imagine if I had to guess here is that Smith uh Misa will end up spending a year in college. We saw Celabbrini do that, though that was of course in his draft year. We saw Smith do that in a similar position here in his D+1. And so, I think Misa will end up taking that same route. And we’ll end up still seeing his NHL debut most likely, but it will come closer to March or April at the end of his college year. Then we have the Sharks third line. This is where we find Alex Wenberg as that third line center. It makes a ton of sense with CBrinian Smith making up that one-two punch in the top six. He can find himself in this position where he is hopefully going to be able to have a good amount of success. If he’s able to carry through the type of performance he was having near the end of last season to this year, he could end up being very solid in this role. And that is kind of expected from him as more of this veteran player. And then you can place him with one of the newest San Jose Sharks, Adam Goddet. Goddette is kind of like a Goodro Deandria type player, but hopefully a significant upgrade over both of those guys because Godette, I mean, it’s hard to be much worse defensively. You’re expected to be a good bit better than those players that were on the Sharks this past season and offensively you are expected to be a huge, huge upgrade. Now, I’m not expecting to have him replicate the 19 goal season that he had last year. Not only did he get some time with Tim Stuts and Brady Kachchuck on their top line, and that helped benefit his scoring ability, but he also shot at over 20%, which is something that even the best players in the NHL aren’t able to do on a consistent basis. I think Austin Matthews career shooting percentage is about 17%. A bit lower than that even. So, Godette, you expect that to fall quite considerably heading into this next season. But even if you were to slash his goal totals in half, that would still be double what Barklay Gudro had. and 10 times what Tai Deandria had. So he should still be a very solid option offensively and defensively for this third line to help complement Alex Wenberg at the center there. The final player on this line I actually have as Igor Chernov. Originally, I had put Carl Grundstrom here, and the idea was going to be that because of the lack of depth in the Sharks top six, it then snowballs into the rest of the lineup and makes it so that on the third line, you have a guy who would be much better served as like a fourth line or even 13th forward like Carl Grundstrom there. But I just couldn’t bring myself to actually do that. The idea of having a player who was a healthy scratch a good amount of time this past season end up being on the Sharks third line to begin the year, it just didn’t really work for me. And so as such I decided to go with the young player who I think has the highest chance of being able to make their NHL debut for this upcoming season and that is Igor Chernishov. This is a player who already has some professional experience. Going back to his draft year, he played more than a couple dozen games in the KHL and he even has had a small stint in the North American Professional League in the AHL with the San Jose Barracuda. I think his most notable achievement there was playing that game four against the Colorado Eagles in the playoffs after having not played the first five games. So, he’s coming in cold right off the bench. He was the Barracuda’s one of at the very least their best players on the ice, making an impact almost every single time he stepped on. And in that game, he scored their only goal of the night by getting good body position in front and deflecting the puck in. So, not only did he show an ability to elevate his game to a higher level that he had not yet played at perhaps throughout his entire career, depending on how you viewed the KHL compared to the AHL playoffs, but also the ability to hold his own physically to be able to get that body position and find success there. Now, it’s not doesn’t necessarily mean that NHL success will follow quite easily, but like I said, I think he has that highest chance of being able to make that jump. It will depend on how training camp goes here. We’ll see what ends up happening, but I believe that this will give a much better offensive option to a top nine that does seem to desperately need it depending on how Graph and Kurishv actually do end up working out. There are other options for this position. Like I said, Gruncham could theoretically end up holding him down. You know, compared to guys like Dandri and Gertro, at the very very least, Gruncham did show some offensive flashes this past season. So, that’s why I had originally put him in this spot. other players who could be here. Cam Lund is one of them. We saw him play a good amount of games at the end of last season as that third liner. He scored a couple of goals, but I wouldn’t really view him as someone who the Sharks are probably going to pencil in for a starting spot. It is much more likely he ends up going that Colin Graph development route where he starts the year with the Barracuda. And the hopes is that he can take the experience from having played in the NHL, use that in the AHL, and then have success there to where maybe at the halfway mark of the season, he can come up and be more of a consistent NHLer like what Graph did. Another possible option here sort of is Denil Guushian. And you’ll notice that I have him with a question mark next to his name because out of every single player on this board, he is the only one who isn’t actually under contract. The Sharks do still retain his rights. They gave him a qualifying offer, but it is still very possible that he will not be on the Sharks start roster at all by the time the season actually begins. But the reason I do have him here still is because in each of the last couple of seasons, I have tried to sort of force a player like Guushian or even like Thomas Bllo who was just recently traded away uh to the New Jersey Devils. I’ve tried to force them into the starting lineup and sometimes it has actually gone that way. You know, Guushian did begin last season with the Sharks, but obviously it was never really a mainstay type of thing. But going into this next season, because the lack of depth at times that the Sharks will have at this forward group, it is very possible that Guushian could actually be more of a consistent NHLer, I just don’t know if he’ll actually be around to be given that chance. And then just a brief aside on that Thomas Bordau uh trade because I didn’t actually make a video about it. Just a small comment here. Uh I was kind of underwhelmed by the return the last time that the Sharks had made a trade where they gave up a prospect who had kind of lost himself in their system. They got back and that was Aussie Wisblat. They got back Igor Aphanasv who at the very least had some potential in the NHL put up good point totals in the American League. But the player who they get back for Borlow, Shane Bowers is nowhere near that. It feels as though he’s much more of like a fourthline AHL player. No real actual upside to him. So this was kind of a weird trade to be made. But I guess if the Sharks didn’t really view Bordalow as being an NHLER, I it’s not anything that’s really going to hurt them that much, except for maybe the Barracuda’s offensive capabilities. But I guess the hope is to create some space in that top six for other players. Anyhow, back to the topic of this video. So that is the third line that I’ve decided on. Churn hopefully being able to make that NHL jump. When it comes to their fourth line here, I have the two probable main stays, Tai Dandria and Barlay Goodro. Dandria theoretically could swap out with Carl Grundstrom throughout the season as Dandria I don’t think has as much of a favored spot from Warsovski as a player like Goodro does, but he’s someone definitely Bararklay who is going to remain in the lineup pretty much every single game. It’s exactly what happened last year. Every time he was healthy, he would play in the lineup. And you could certainly say, well, yeah, I’m sure if Bararklay Goodro though plays any worse, I’m sure he’ll come out of the lineup. But he was already statistically one of the worst players in the entire NHL this past season. How could you really fall even further than that? So, he’s got a spot locked down more or less. I mean, if you go back to a quote given by Worovski near the end of this past season, not only did he say Bararklay Goodro played an extremely important role on the team throughout that year, but that Borsovski is expecting that to continue over the next couple of seasons. So, he’s a fourth liner. Hopefully, that’s he doesn’t go up in the lineup, even if he’s not going to go down. And then the final player on this line, the center position, I have that being filled by a stapuck going back to what I had mentioned where he was acquired in that Fabian Zedelin trade. I imagine Mike Greer and Ryan Warovski are going to try and make this player work out in this role. It didn’t really do much at the end of last season. He played a few games in the NHL with the Sharks. And while he wasn’t like completely terrible or anything, there was nothing actually exciting or interesting or decent about him at all. I think it was what his first eight or nine games with the Sharks. He put up a grand total of zero shots on goal. So that wasn’t a particularly great sign, but maybe a full off season under his belt with San Jose will help him come in to next year looking a little bit better. There are definitely other options, however, for this fourth line role. The first of which would be Patrick Giles, a player who was not particularly interesting at the time when the Sharks acquired him in the VTech Vanichek trade. And yet, every single position that San Jose put him in near the end of this past season, he actually found success. Whether that was as the fourth line center on the Sharks, the third line center on the Sharks, or when he was sent down to the Barracuda, playing with them through the playoffs with San Jose, the Barracuda, he was actually one of their best forwards. And so while he, you know, I would normally go for more of the younger player like a stap is a few years younger than uh Giles, this is a player who was having a good amount of success with the Sharks this past season that I wouldn’t be that opposed if he found himself in that fourthline role. Another potential option would be Philip Beastat. Kind of similar age to Zakastchuk, but someone who might be a little bit higher in the Sharks depth chart. So, if they really want to be able to put him into that position, he could maybe leapfrog him here for an NHL spot. I don’t really expect that to occur. I think the Sharks will want to keep Beastat in the AHL, see if he can find more of a consistent output and then maybe make the jump to the NHL in the 2627 season, but I didn’t want to necessarily completely discount the possibility. And then there is also Ethan Cardwell. Now, he wouldn’t necessarily be a center, but he could still theoretically replace a Stapchuck in the lineup and then have Barklay Goodro move to that center position. Cardwell could play the wing. He played a few games for the Sharks this past season in the NHL. He even scored his first career goal. He wasn’t necessarily the most reliable of players here in that bottom six, which might usually be a knock against him, but let’s be honest, Dandria or Goodro also were not particularly reliable this past season. I seem to recall many massive defensive errors made by Dandria near the end of this past season. I remember a bunch of terrible giveaways made by Barkley Godro at the beginning of this past season and in fact that still occurred and let him move up the lineup to play some second and first line positions for himself. So that didn’t seem to bother Worovski all that much. And at the very least, Cardwell on that fourth line could bring a kind of excitement and hunger and just level of effort that the Sharks would desperately need in this particular position. And being more of that younger guy, it’s an opportunity to see what you have in a particular prospect. Now, there are a couple of other players who I do want to mention. This wouldn’t necessarily be for fourthline roles, but they’re guys who theoretically could factor into the Sharks lineup, but I wouldn’t necessarily expect it to occur. One name is Quinton Musty. He’s going to be able to finally make a full-time professional debut this season. He was kind of stagnant this past year because of having to go back to juniors where things just didn’t really work out for him for a bunch of different reasons that aren’t really going to be talked about here, but he’s going to be more of that professional guy. It could theoretically be the case that he comes in to training camp is exceptionally good and makes that jump to the NHL. I don’t really think that’s going to end up happening, but I didn’t want to just fully eliminate the chance of it being the case, but he’ll likely be more of a Barracuda player. And then the final player here is actually Igor Aphanas, who I mentioned earlier on was acquired in that Aussie Wise Blat trade. I’m not bringing him up so much as like a player who I really want to see inserted into the lineup, but I found it very intriguing how he’s back here with the Sharks signing a contract because when he was originally traded for from Nashville, the idea from him was is that he wanted to play in the NHL. And that’s why Nashville traded him in the first place cuz they said, “Yeah, we’re not going to give you that spot. Maybe you’ll get it on San Jose because they have the weakest roster in the NHL.” That didn’t happen though. And Aphanasv went overseas, signed a contract in the KHL. But after one year there where his production really wasn’t all that great, he’s now made his way back to North America, signing this deal with the Sharks. Does that mean San Jose has told him that he’s got a real shot of making the NHL team? Does that mean he has reached the realization that perhaps he is more of just an American League player and that’s where he’s expecting to play this next season with the Barracuda? I’m not entirely sure, but he is an interesting name to bring up anyway. But that will do it for this video. this Sharks forward group. There is some very real potential here, not only with some of the newer players depending on how if Kurishv works out or if Chernos works out, but it should also be noted that steps forward are expected from guys like Celibbrini, even from Eklan, from Graph, perhaps even from Smith depending on how his adjustment back to the center position does work. So, it is certainly possible that we end up with a top 12 group that is better than what it was last season. Class dismissed.

Taking a very early look at what the forward lines could look like at the beginning of the 25-26 season for the San Jose Sharks.