It’s no secret that the Sharks have one of the best, if not the best prospect pool in the entire NHL. General Manager Mike Grier has added Macklin Celebrini, Yaroslav Askarov and Sam Dickinson to a group of young players that already included Will Smith, Quentin Musty, Luca Cagnoni and Shakir Mukhamadullin, taking the pool from “good” to “elite.”
Prospect evaluation and progression is a game fraught with danger, however, and as teenagers begin to grow into their bodies and games, their perceived ceilings and trajectories can change rapidly. The Sharks’ pool is no different, and it’s worth examining how things look with them now.
For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll be examining all players who were eligible for rookie status at the start of the season, plus any notable players the Sharks recently graduated from prospect status. And given the uncertainty inherent in evaluating prospects, we’ll group them into five tiers: Diamond, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Copper.
Diamond
Franchise cornerstones that are consistently among the top three or four players of their position in the league during their peak. Think of Joe Thornton, Sidney Crosby, Connor Hellebuyck and Cale Makar.
Players: Macklin Celebrini
Celebrini isn’t just the best prospect the Sharks have ever drafted — he’s probably one of the best prospects to have emerged since the Connor McDavid draft. Having spent his early developmental years as a defenseman, Celebrini seamlessly blends elite defensive play with a bullet shot and an incredibly crisp arsenal of passes.
What sets Celebrini apart isn’t just his raw skills, however (which are plenty tantalizing on their own). His hockey awareness and compete are off-the-charts good and have invoked comparisons to Sidney Crosby with every turn of the head. Whatever expectations the Sharks had of him as a rookie, Celebrini has blown past them already, with 28 points in 30 games as of Jan. 6, 2025.
Prospects of this ilk are really, really rare; franchises like Detroit and Columbus have spent a decade in the wilderness and have yet to come up with a prospect of this caliber. Frequently touted as the team’s best player and already assuming a visible leadership role on the bench, it seems only a matter of time before the Sharks give Celebrini a letter.
Gold
Perennial all-stars that fall short of the generational tier but are elite NHLers and potential Hall-of-Famers in their own right. Examples include Marc-Andre Fleury, Mitch Marner, and Shea Weber.
Players: Will Smith, Sam Dickinson, Yaroslav Askarov
Most teams would be perfectly happy to have one prospect in this tier. To have two is considered a luxury, and to have three is unheard of. And yet this is exactly where the Sharks find themselves, with Askarov, Dickinson and Smith all identified by scouts and experts as potential elite NHLers.
Smith’s season has perhaps been the most “ordinary” of the lot — the center had a bit of a rough start to the NHL, taking nine games to score his first goal. Since the early drought, however, he’s settled into a more regular rhythm, and while his production hit a recent dry spell during the team’s long losing streak, he’s still netted 14 points in the team’s last 26 games (as of Jan. 6, 2025), which is an extremely productive pace for a 19-year-old rookie.
Dickinson, meanwhile, has set the OHL ablaze with 46 (!) points in 26 games for the London Knights. Arguably the best defenseman in junior hockey this season, he’s been every bit as advertised and is producing at a record pace without compromising his play in his own end, validating the Sharks’ decision to take him over Zeev Buium. The NHL should come calling soon; Dickinson is clearly rapidly outgrowing juniors, and he should find a spot on San Jose’s blueline as early as next season.
The 22-year-old Askarov, of course, has been lights-out in the AHL again, with a barely-believable .938 save percentage in 14 games. He’s looked comfortable in the NHL as well, with a .923 SV% in 7 games, and has been one of the best goalies in the league during his time with the Sharks. There’s not much to say about him beyond the fact that he’s been every bit as good as advertised, and he’s a big reason San Jose fans can look to the future with such hope.
Silver
Genuine top-six forwards, top-four defensemen, or starting goaltenders who don’t necessarily grab the headlines but are very productive players in their own right and may be fringe all-stars in the right years. Players like Tomas Hertl, Seth Jones, and Evgeni Nabokov fit into this category.
Players: William Eklund, Quentin Musty, Shakir Mukhamadullin, Luca Cagnoni
It’s becoming extremely clear that the Sharks have a clear, productive and extremely talented playmaking forward in Eklund, with the forward on pace for 60 points this season. Aged just 22, his peak could easily see him hit a 70-point pace, and he looks like a vital complementary piece that could slot alongside Celebrini or Smith for years to come.
The rest of the prospects listed in this group don’t quite have Eklund’s ceiling, but they’re also far too talented to place into a lower category, so we’re putting them here for now.
After a disappointing training camp, Musty was sent down to the OHL due to an age-related quirk of the CHL/NHL agreement — as he was only 19, he was ineligible to play in the AHL and had to either play for the Sharks or in the OHL.
Predictably, Musty has once again lit up the OHL, with 20 points in 11 games. But his season has been one of disappointments, beginning with an unsuccessful holdout to start, where he initially refused to report to Sudbury in hopes of a trade. When one failed to materialize, however, he ended up having to return to the club after being told by Grier that continuing to hold out was not a tenable path forward.
Having missed a month of development time, Musty then failed to make Team USA for the World Juniors, before breaking his hand in November and spending over a month on the sidelines. However he had envisioned this season going, this was surely not it.
The 5’9” Cagnoni, meanwhile, has gone from strength to strength as a prospect; he was one of the last cuts for the Sharks and has looked right at home in the AHL, potting 22 points in his first 30 games. Cagnoni has adjusted incredibly well to the professional leagues despite his size, and if he can continue this trajectory, a call up to the NHL is very likely to come soon.
Mukhamadullin has perhaps had the most mixed season of the lot, having gotten off to a slow start following an injury to begin the season. But he’s looked fine in the NHL to begin with and scored his first goal of the season recently, and retains plenty of promise as a potential top-four defenseman for the Sharks in the years to come.
Bronze
Players in this tier are the “average NHLers.” They’ll hold down a spot on the third line or bottom pairing and can occasionally step up if needed, but generally don’t play too high or produce too much. Good examples include Joonas Donskoi, Brenden Dillon, and James Reimer — “fine” is probably the best way to describe this group.
Players: Igor Chernyshov, Leo Sahlin Wallenius, Filip Bystedt, Kasper Halttunen, Collin Graf, Cameron Lund, Eric Pohlkamp, Jack Thompson, Henry Thrun
The Sharks’ abundance of prospects in this tier is nothing new to most fans, who have spent decades looking at pools exclusively consisting of players here. But the sheer volume is still significant, and given the surprising amount of potential stars in the pool already, the players here could provide valuable depth or trade leverage for the team in years to come.
Grier has already begun to leverage the latter aspect, having traded David Edstrom and Vegas’ first-round pick for Askarov, a potential franchise goaltender. But players like Chernyshov, Wallenius, Lund and Graf could provide excellent depth for the team as Celebrini, Dickinson and Smith grow into their abilities, and could help the Sharks build a contender in a far more sustainable manner, without overpaying for depth like they have in the past.
All of these prospects have had decent seasons; Pohlkamp and Graf have probably had the best of the lot; the former has put up 14 points in 18 games at Denver University, while the latter has been arguably the best rookie in the entire AHL, receiving another call up to the Sharks as a reward. But Bystedt, Lund and Thompson haven’t had terrible seasons either, and look to be solid depth pieces that could lock down regular spots in the NHL within a couple seasons.
What strikes me here is that a lot of these players are not only extremely skilled, but also possess physical gifts that make their eventual NHL arrival more likely than not. Halttunen has perhaps the hardest shot on the entire junior hockey circuit, while Bystedt is a big-bodied 6’2” center with clear third-line upside. And while Igor Chernyshov has spent the first half of the season injured, he’s still a 6’3” power forward with dynamic offensive ability.
Teams pay a lot for these kinds of players. Having them in a prospect pool allows a franchise to either affordably fill out their roster or assemble and augment a package for a game-breaking talent in a position of need. As the Sharks continue to get better and add more high-level prospects, they may look to do just that.
Copper
Fringe NHLers. Think of Joakim Ryan, Lukas Radil, Aaron Dell, etc — players who you can call up in a pinch but who probably shouldn’t play a prominent or even a top-9 role on any good team.
There are too many players to note here, but I’ll give two notable ones that have been serious disappointments for me: Mattias Havelid and Thomas Bordeleau. Havelid has seen his progress stall badly with Linköping, as his offensive output has dwindled to near-zero, while Bordeleau has suffered injury after injury and hasn’t produced at either the NHL or AHL levels.
I’m not ruling out the possibility of either player making an NHL impact, but it’s probably safe to say that the Sharks expected more out of them, and far more out of Bordeleau in particular.
