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Anthony Duclair appreciation post

Posted on by Erika Towne
Anthony Duclair has only been a San Jose Shark for five months, but he's already endeared himself to fans with his demeanor on an off the ice.
Nov 22, 2023; Seattle, Washington, USA; San Jose Sharks left wing Anthony Duclair (10) advances the puck against the Seattle Kraken during the first period at Climate Pledge Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

Anthony Duclair is in the final year of his three-year, $9 million contract. At the end of the 2023-24 season, the 28-year-old becomes a free agent. The San Jose Sharks are, obviously, rebuilding and could probably get a second or third-round pick or a mid-level prospect for Duclair at the trade deadline. Maybe even a late first-round pick, considering Duclair’s scoring abilities and his low cap hit that should be closer to the $1 million range when the trade deadline rolls around. He is a prime candidate for a trade. But could he also be a prime candidate to stick around for the next four or five seasons and go on this rebuild journey with the Sharks?

Whether he ends up with the Sharks through this season or not, let’s take a moment to recognize what he’s done in the past few months to make him an almost instant favorite among Sharks’ fans.

Duclair’s scoring touch

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. The man can score. Too often, Sharks fans have watched breakaways like the one on Monday against the New York Rangers end up in the opposing goaltender’s pads. It’s frustrating and agonizing to watch. Duclair, however, is a finisher.

Just a few nights before, he scored a different goal with a similar move.

And he scored the first goal in the Sharks’ first win of the season on Nov. 7 against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Duclair has 6 goals in 22 games this season and while, admittedly, that’s off his pace from his personal best of 31 in 2021-22, he also played a few games after a bout of strep throat where he wasn’t 100%.

Lockerroom Leadership

What Duclair does on the ice is one thing, but what he does off the ice may be even more important to the Sharks. Duclair has been around the block in the NHL. He’s played for six different teams (San Jose is his seventh) and in incredibly different markets. He started in the Big Apple with the New York Rangers. He played in Arizona, Chicago, Columbus and Ottawa before landing with the Florida Panthers, where he went all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals. He’s seen a thing or two, so it’s nice to hear that he’s taken some of the younger players under his wing.

“Eklund, Zetterlund, & Bordeleau are all my sons. Just young guys. We connected early on in training camp. Those three kids remind me a lot of myself when I was younger. I’ve just taken them under my wing and we’ve grown close the last few months,” reported Max Miller of The Hockey News.

Keeping a guy like that who is willing to work with the younger players and guide them isn’t a bad thing.

Duclair tells it like it is

He’s also not afraid to tell it like it is. Duclair was among the only players to score in the team’s 10-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins. It broke a goalless drought for the forward, but it didn’t make a difference to him. He was understandably angry in the postgame media scrum.

Then, of course, there was his stance on the NHL ban on Pride tape. As Duclair told San Jose Hockey Now’s Sheng Peng, the decision was “puzzling.”

An all-around good guy

By all indications, it seems as though Duclair is an all-around good guy. Despite the question marks surrounding his future in San Jose, he jumped right into the community.

He also runs his own foundation, The Anthony Duclair Foundation, dedicated to bringing more people of color to the game of hockey.

According to the site:

“The Anthony Duclair Foundationā€™s mission is to ensure that Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) children are granted safe and equal access to playing hockey in North America. As it stands right now, that population accounts for less than 15% of all hockey players. Those children, specifically, are severely under-represented when compared to the greater North American population.”

Bonus Duclair material!

Finally, if you just can’t get enough of Anthony Duclair, check out his interview on The Deep with Tara Sloan.

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