Why Sharks will need trade sell-off to help secure a top 2023 NHL Draft pick

Mike Grier has been the Sharks’ general manager for six months, and he said Friday that while it has been a challenge, the job has been about what he expected — not more challenging or less.

While he had some difficult circumstances at the beginning of his tenure, the next few months could be critical for setting up the rest of his plan to return the Sharks to playoff and Stanley Cup contention.

We’ll see if he still feels the same way then.

When Grier started, he made it clear this group of players would have a chance to prove it could win together. The Sharks have won 13 of their first 44 games and are in 28th place in the NHL standings.

“The guys are still playing hard,” Grier said. “We will kind of give them a chance to see what they can do, but at the same time, at some point, start looking towards the draft and the future and things like that.”

This draft, and the future that comes after it, could be different. The Sharks are going to miss the playoffs for a fourth straight season, but have yet to reap the benefits from their on-ice troubles.

They had to give up the No. 3 pick in the 2020 NHL Draft as part of a trade to acquire Erik Karlsson. The previous regime was ecstatic to land William Eklund with the No. 7 selection in 2021, and while he is San Jose’s best prospect he does not appear to be a franchise trajectory-altering one. They landed at No. 11 in the 2022 draft, and Grier’s first big decision as GM was to trade back.

The Sharks currently have the fifth-worst record in the league, despite a team that has played better than its results. This draft class is considered a special one, not just because Connor Bedard could be one of the five best prospects of the salary cap era. Adam Fantilli, Matvei Michkov and Leo Carlsson could all be a No. 1 pick in a recent draft, but they will hear their names after Bedard in June. Will Smith or Zach Benson will also likely be a better prospect than most that have been selected at No. 5.

San Jose can add one of those players. The Sharks have lost enough games to get them in the mix for a top-five selection.

“It would be great for the franchise,” Grier said. “We’re trying to do the best we can to replenish some of the prospect pool and get some guys in there to kind of push up. We’ll see how the rest of the season goes. But if we’re able to get one of those top guys, I think it’s hugely important for the organization and to move forward with someone we can start to really build around.”

Now comes the tricky part. The Sharks, starting with owner Hasso Plattner, are not a fan of the term “tanking.” It’s been a topic that yields plenty of consternation in recent years for a portion of the fan base that wants to see its team tear down the roster and openly push for a player like Bedard in the way that Chicago already started in the offseason and how Arizona has been for multiple seasons.

Grier is also very much not a fan of “tanking.”

“I’m against it,” he said. “I’m a super competitive person. Every organization has different thoughts on it and different opinions on it. But it’s never my intention, nor would I ever ask the coaches or players … I would never assume or hope or ask those guys not to go out there and try and win every single game. It’s not something I believe in. We’re going to try and win games right down to Game 82. We’ll kind of see where we are at the end of the day.”

There’s nothing wrong with expecting the coaches and players to do whatever they can to win every game. Teams in the NHL rarely sit their best players or purposely play them fewer minutes with the intention of, well, not winning.

But that doesn’t mean Grier can’t do more to help his team’s lottery chances. And given how this season has gone, he’s probably going to need to.

“Tanking” or whatever less-vilified term someone might use, happens at the GM level in the NHL. It’s not about players or coaches not trying to win … it is about GMs making the roster worse so those players who are still trying aren’t as capable of collecting two points.

There are only two lottery spots in the NHL Draft process, a change in its third year. That means a team near the bottom of the standings can only drop two places maximum.

“Tanking” isn’t just about trying to get the best odds at Bedard this year. The teams that finish with the worst three records are guaranteed to get a top-five pick.

The Sharks have the fifth-worst record, which would mean they can pick no lower than seventh. The other teams near the bottom have all played worse this year — the four teams below San Jose in the standings are all in the bottom six in expected goals for percentage. Montreal, the team in front of San Jose, is also in the bottom six. The Sharks are 19th and were 17th before a 7-1 loss Friday to the Oilers.

Those other bad teams are already playing bad hockey, and they’re going to get worse as their GMs trade players away over the next six weeks. Other teams ahead of the Sharks in the standings, including Philadelphia, St. Louis and Vancouver, could all sell off players and nosedive over the final weeks.

Grier has the ability to do the same.

Trading his unrestricted free agents, including Matt Nieto, Nick Bonino and James Reimer, is a good start. Even though Reimer has had a tough run of form since an injury in late November, the Sharks would be a worse team without him.

All three of those players have helped build a culture in the locker room that Grier and Quinn are happy with. But the Sharks need more assets for the future, and they need to be worse.

Trading Karlsson could be tough to do, not just because he’s having a generational offensive season, but because of the logistics with his contract. That might need to wait until the offseason, if Grier wants to do it at all.

Trading Timo Meier will also be tough, but more because he’s a great player who isn’t that old. However, the Sharks have long-term salary cap concerns and moving him could land a player or two that do become part of the next great San Jose team’s core.

If the Sharks decide to keep Meier and/or Karlsson beyond the March 3 deadline, they could move someone else who is under contract beyond this season. Just trading the pending UFAs might not be enough.

While Grier said he is against tanking, trading veterans for future assets might not exactly be part of his definition of the term. Whether or not that is semantics, the important thing is if the Sharks do want to secure a top-four or top-five pick in the 2023 draft, he is going to need to do more to improve their odds.

(Photo of James Reimer and Nick Bonino: Bill Smith / NHLI via Getty Images)