Sharks core slowly changing

Has 2 more years on his contract, but I agree, Petrecki will be given a shot next year – I’m just not sure he’ll be ready/good enough yet.

He’s apparantly been working on his skating / foot work (speed) this offseason, hopefully he shows as much improvement as he did from year 1 in the AHL to year two.

Murray is “only 6’3” as well, don’t know what your point is.

For being heresy. But then I figured the mods would actually have to read what I wrote and that would just be a waste of their time. So I decided to write this to ensure equal opportunity time wasting.

but what if DW does well with UFA’s. He does have the advantage of how easy it is for players to like the org, including wanting to live out here. And technically has the next 2 years before anyone can really panic.

True, but only ‘what if.’

Problem is DW doesn’t traditionally do well in the UFA market. He makes trades. It’s rare for big-name UFA’s to want to sign in SJ unless they’ve already had some time with the team, either homegrown or acquired via trade… I’m not panicking, but the concern of bare cupboards is understandable.

Move the team to Dartmouth, NS.

They play in a weak division, have Magglio’s albatross contract coming off the books, and have several star young players in Avila, Cabrera, Verlander, and Peralta.

Right. The higher the pick, the more you increase the odds of that pick turning out to be an elite talent, but there’s no sure thing. The way you develop through the draft is to have a bunch of possible top-6 forwards in the system.

If we start thinking we’re geniuses and can reliably pluck diamonds from the 7th round coal pile, we’re going to be in big trouble.

What about Freddie Hamilton and Sgarbossa? They certainly look to be top 6 talent at the moment.

for Forward picks/prospects. Goalie is one position where we don’t NEED a ton of prospects, especially with Niemi locked up long term and Stalock in the wings.

could this whole outlook change by next year if the Sharks hold on to most of their current picks and do well in next year’s draft?

Definitely. We were supposedly thin on defensive prospects a couple of years ago, but now we’ve got Demers, Braun, Doherty, Petrecki, and a few guys with an outside shot like Acolatse and Abeltshauser. And that’s with Vlasic and Burns still being fairly young. It’d take a strong draft or two, but the worries could be erased.

And does anyone know excatly how many picks the Sharks have next year or is just one extra 2nd round pick?

I think we’re actually down a few picks. We have our first, the Wild’s 2nd, our 2nd went for Ian White to Carolina, the Flyers have our 3rd from the Versteeg trade according to Wikipedia, the Ducks get our fourth from the Huskins trade, and we have our 5th through 7th round picks. That’s not to say we couldn’t regain some through the season, though. Gaining high picks (especially in the 1st and 2nd rounds) will probably be tricky, though, because we tend to draft late in rounds and teams up their prices for their picks that come before ours accordingly. Depending on how they do, though, that Wild 2nd rounder could be gold.

Another thing to add in is that DW has done decently well at filling the prospect pool with mid-talent guys via signing free agent players. Ferriero, Desjardins, Mashinter, Acolatse, Anderson, and Connolly were all undrafted or drafted and released players.

I’m really hoping Sateri plays to his potential, then we could call him Harri Houdini, because he makes pucks disappear.