Many grimaced when they saw the San Jose Sharks win the NHL draft lottery on Tuesday. For them to intentionally slide down the rankings in the hopes of picking up gems at the top of the list is an insult to the integrity of the sport.
This point of view can be defended. On the other hand, two of the most revered teams of twenty years, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals, were built this way.
Several months before drafting Alex Ovechkin first overall in 2004, the Washington Capitals traded the NHL’s best scorer, Robert Lang, who still had several years left on his contract, their best defenseman, Sergei Gonchar, and Jaromir Jagr.
Washington finished in the cellar of the rankings three years in a row, between 2004 and 2007, and was thus able to get its hands on another key piece, center Nicklas Backstrom, in fourth place in 2006. Today we blame their GM at the time, George McPhee, for disrespecting the team’s fans?
In his first season in Pittsburgh, Sidney Crosby’s situation resembled that of Connor Bedard this winter in Chicago. We had repatriated veterans at the end of the runway to surround him. Pittsburgh finished in 26the rank in 2002, 29e rank in 2003, 30e rank in 2004 and 29e rank in 2006. There were 30 teams at the time, not 32…
We can curse the Sharks, now blessed with two of the most promising centers of their generation, Will Smith and Macklin Celebrini, but to blame them after applauding Pittsburgh and Washington? And more recently the Avalanche and the Lightning? The Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar don’t grow on trees unless you have extraordinary flair… coupled with a unique stroke of luck.
What’s next for the Sharks
The Sharks won’t have a long wait between their first pick and their second on June 28. They also hold the 14e total pick, that of the Pittsburgh Penguins, obtained for defenseman Erik Karlsson, and two second round picks, theirs, at 33e rank, and that of the New Jersey Devils, at 42e rank, acquired in the Timo Meier transaction last year.
This exchange is also starting to be worth its weight in gold. Defenseman Shakir Mukhamadullin, a first-round pick in 2020, is coming off a good professional season in North America in the American League with 34 points in 55 games. But also, above all, the Sharks seem to have drafted a good player at 26e rank with the other draft pick acquired in the transaction. At 18 years old, winger Quentin Musty has just amassed 102 points, including 43 goals, in just 53 games with the Sudbury Wolves in the Ontario Junior League.
Among the other youngsters, 2021 first pick, seventh overall, winger William Eklund, had 45 points in his first full season in the National League. The 2022 first pick, center Filip Bystedt, finished the winter in the American League and had almost a point per game.
San Jose still risks drafting in the top 5 next year. Their two new gems, Smith and Celebrini, could well face each other again in the NCAA Hockey East division. Smith appears to be aiming for one more season with Boston College with line partners Gabriel Perreault and Ryan Leonard in order to win a national championship that eluded the team in the finals a few weeks ago.
Celebrini could follow suit and stay at Boston University, but without Lane Hutson. He will nevertheless be replaced by his brother Cole, a similar model and undoubtedly a first round choice this year, and by the prolific scorer Cole Eiserman, one of the fifteen best prospects of the 2024 vintage, after having scored 58 goals in 57 games in the American development program.
San Jose also has a second first-round pick in 2025, that of the Vegas Golden Knights, obtained for Tomas Hertl. They also got their hands on a 19-year-old left-handed center, David Edstrom, 32e overall pick in 2023, 19 points in 44 games last winter in the Swedish First Division (SHL).
A giant defender in Columbus in the fourth row?
A growing number of pundits are now linking giant-sized Russian defenseman Anton Silayev, 6-foot-7, 211 pounds, to the fourth-ranked Columbus Blue Jackets overall. Silayev is mobile for a defender of his size and shows some offensive potential in the KHL with 11 points in 63 games with the Torpedo. This production may seem poor, but 18-year-old players generally sit on the bench in Russia’s first professional division.
Silayev ends up in Columbus in the most recent mock draft from Scott Wheeler of The Athletic. Unsurprisingly, Wheeler intended Macklin Celebrini to the Sharks, then Ivan Demidov to the Blackhawks and defenseman Artyom Levshunov to the Ducks. The Athletic analyst predicts Cayden Lindstrom in Montreal at fifth place, an increasingly plausible scenario.
reference: www.lapresse.ca