The San Jose Sharks’ prospect pool is loaded, but a lot of eyes have been on young Sam Dickinson. The 11th overall pick in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft excelled when he returned to juniors after the draft, setting records and showing great promise as an offensive defenseman. The big question for Sharks fans heading into last summer was where the rookie would play in the 2025-26 season. Since the new collective bargaining agreement has not gone into effect yet, the Sharks needed to decide if the raw but talented defenseman would jump to the NHL or spend just nine games with the big club before finding his way back to juniors for another year of seasoning. There would be no in-between for the first-round pick because he wasn’t old enough to play in the AHL.
Dickinson’s 2025-26 production
While it was a slow-played hand, the Sharks ultimately decided that the best plan for the young defenseman was to keep him with the big club and see what he could do. Much like the team’s plan with Will Smith in his rookie season, it appeared that the Sharks wanted to ramp up Dickinson’s time on the ice.
Early in the season, the Sharks gave him game nights off and played him in and out of the lineup. However, as the season progressed, the Sharks began to give Dickinson more responsibility, and as the team neared the end of the 82-game stretch, Dickinson not only played every game, but he also found himself getting time on the power play.
| Games Played | Goals | Assists | Points | +/- | Shooting % | TOI/Game |
| 72 | 1 | 13 | 14 | -5 | 1.4% | 16:45 |
Given that Dickinson was not tasked with much more than even-strength time, his 16:45 of ice time average wasn’t a bad result for his rookie season.
Potential makings of a top-four defenseman
Dickinson, admittedly, did not take on the top matchups in his first season in the NHL, but there are no easy outs either. He did well with what he was given and helped produce offense for the Sharks, which is exactly what the team was hoping for. As you can see from his regularized-adjusted plus-minus (RAPM) chart from Evolving-Hockey, he was an offensive generator for the Sharks this season.
In fact, when you look at how he performed compared to the other defensemen on the Sharks, you can see that he was one of the more impactful defensemen.
Where Vincent Desharnais and Mario Ferraro made their marks with their even-strength defense, Dickinson made his mark with his even-strength offense. This is a good sign for a player coming out of his rookie season, and hopefully, he can build on this.
How does Dickinson stack up with other rookie defensemen?
And since fans simply can’t help themselves and have to compare whether their rookie did better than another team’s rookie, it might make Sharks fans feel better to know that Dickinson did pretty well when compared to other rookies this season. In the NHL, there are 20 defensemen who are considered “rookies” who played 500 minutes or more this season. Some of these “rookies” were 25/26 years old, but others were younger.
When you look at how some of the top young prospects stack up according to Evolving-Hockey, it looks like Dickinson is doing okay.
| Name | Age | Games Played | TOI | GF/60 | GA/60 |
| Matthew Schaefer (NYI) | 18 (Sept. 5, 2007) | 82 (1) | 1567.97 (1) | 0.187 (1) | -0.085 (4) |
| Alex Nikishin (CAR) | 24 (Oct. 2, 2001) | 81 (2) | 1245.15 (2) | 0.102 (3) | -0.105 (3) |
| Sam Dickinson (SJS) | 19 (June 7, 2006) | 72 (T-3) | 1114.14 (4) | 0.183 (2) | 0.162 (18) |
| Tom Willander (VAN) | 21 (Feb. 9, 2005) | 70 (5) | 1057.88 (6) | -0.025 (9) | 0.144 (17) |
| Axel Sandin-Pellikka (DET) | 21 (March 11, 2005) | 68 (T-6) | 956.2 (9) | -0.085 (13) | 0.203 (19) |
| Artyom Levshunov (CHI) | 20 (Oct. 28, 2005) | 68 (T-6) | 1084.55 (5) | -0.16 (18) | 0.312 (20) |
| Sam Rinzel (CHI) | 21 (June 25, 2004) | 54 (12) | 857.05 (12) | 0.02 (7) | 0.018 (12) |
| Zeev Buium (MIN/VAN) | 20 (Dec. 7, 2005) | 45 (13) | 805.23 (13) | -0.138 (15) | 0.056 (14) |
| Zayne Parekh (CGY) | 20 (Feb. 15, 2006) | 37 (17) | 526.58 (17) | -0.139 (16) | -0.055 (7) |
Other than Schaefer, Dickinson was the only other teenager to play more than 500 minutes in the NHL this season. He was tied for third in the number of games played and fourth in minutes logged.
Dickinson, who did so well offensively in the OHL with the London Knights that he set a franchise record with 91 points and was named the defenseman of the year at the end of the 2024-25 season, has seen portions of his offensive game translate to the NHL. Among rookies who played at least 500 minutes this season, he was second in goals for per 60 minutes (GF/60), trailing only Matthew Schaefer.
As with most offensive defensemen, the defensive part of Dickinson’s game was a bit slower to catch up this season. Over the season, his defensive game ranked 18th in goals allowed per 60 minutes among rookies with 500 or more minutes.
However, there’s reason to think things are trending in the right direction for Dickinson defensively. Looking at his numbers from Natural Stat Trick, you can break his season down into two parts: what he did before the Olympic break and what he did after.
| Games Played | TOI | GF% | xGF% | |
| Before 2/3/26 | 45 | 664:34 | 48.53 | 44.53 |
| After 2/25/26 | 27 | 453:31 | 46.94 | 50.97 |
Before the Olympic break, Dickinson was creating offense, something that came easily to the offensively-minded defenseman. However, he didn’t always choose the right moments. Sometimes, his choices paid dividends. Other times, he got caught pinching at the wrong time, and the opponent took advantage. That’s why his goals for percent (GF%) is higher than his expected goals for (xGF%) on the chart above.
After the Olympic break, Dickinson seemed to make an effort to lock down his defense a bit more. You can see that his xGF% was above 50%, which is a good sign even if his GF% was below 50%. He was doing the right things at even-strength, even if it wasn’t paying off all the time.
Next season, it will be interesting to see whether Dickinson can find that balance between taking risks on offense and playing responsibly on defense. He showed growth toward the end of this season and it would be great to see if that growth continues into the start of next season.
Dickinson’s future with the Sharks
Like many of the young players we’re discussing in these reviews, Dickinson is still in his entry-level contract, which means he’s locked in with the very reasonable price of $950,000 for the next two seasons (and a $942,500 cap hit). His deal doesn’t expire until the end of the 2027-28 season, though he’ll be eligible to sign an extension at the end of next season.
With the contract issues out of the way, the other question is whether Dickinson stays with the Sharks or drops down to the Barracuda and the AHL next season. His game got stronger as the season wore on, so it seems as though there’s no debate anymore. What’s more, it really seems like we’re in a “there’s no turning back now” situation. Dickinson is with the Sharks to stay, barring a major regression in play.
What might be more interesting to see is where Dickinson slots into the team’s depth chart next season. Does Luca Cagnoni jump ahead of him on the chart, or is Dickinson slotted higher? Who gets more time on the power play? Both are left-shot defensemen, and it seems like it might be a one or the other situation.
Editor’s Note: Over the next few weeks, we will be rolling out the player reviews for the San Jose Sharks. We realize there were a lot of guys rotating into and out of the lineup and some of the key depth players were traded. As a result, Fear the Fin plans to focus on the players who are 1) still with the Sharks and 2) played 20 or more games for San Jose this season.
