The San Jose Sharks 2023-24 campaign can be described with a lot of different words, but the one that I would like to use is embarrassing. Yes, everyone in and around the hockey world knew that the team was living up to their arena’s nickname and fully embracing a tank, but getting their doors blown off in back-to-back games by the Canucks and Penguins respectively by a tune of 10 goals allowed set the stage for one of the most dismal seasons in NHL history. Head coach David Quinn was relieved of duty at the end of the season as a scapegoat of sorts for this historically bad season, but even Scott Bowman would’ve been pressed to win 30 games with that roster (Quinn got 19 out of the group). Luckily, tanking seemingly has yielded results for the Sharks that will allow them to be better in 2024-25.

               The Sharks kicked off their offseason by fleecing Steve Yzerman (not historically hard to do since taking the Red Wings job) by sending the perennially underperforming future considerations to acquire a legitimate bottom four defenseman in Jake Walman. Walman did have his worst GAR season in 2023-24 with a -1.7, but he’s one year removed from a +9.5. For a Sharks team that ceded 16% more SOG than the league average, Walman’s 7.27 iBLK/60 will help the team’s goaltending for sure. In free agency, the Sharks picked up two big name veteran forwards in Tyler Toffoli and Alex Wennberg. Toffoli has been a fringe star for the entirety of his career and is a proven and consistent offensive contributor regardless of the team or coaching system that he is in (Having played for 4 different teams over the past 3 seasons). The Sharks can expect 50-60 points from Toffoli, but his overall defensive game will do very little to assist the other half of their struggles from a year ago. Wennberg joins as a player whose impact has been inconsistent throughout his career. At this best, Wennberg is an elite middle-six center (2015 to 2017 in Columbus, and last season splitting time between Seattle and New York) who can exploit matchups against less capable defensive forwards. At his worst, he’s a low impact two-way middle-six center that plays a responsible defensive game.

Now for the remaining couple of deals, I’m not super invested in the D Ty Emberson for D Cody Ceci and a 2025 third round selection trade. It’s effectively a low-event player swap, but it is worth noting that Emberson is of course much younger, on a lower paying deal, and has posted better results than Ceci. However, there’s gotta be some veteran leadership on a roster this young, so I think this makes some sense from an intangibles standpoint. As for the acquisition of G Yaroslav Askarov from Nashville, Liam and I already collaborated on getting something out there that puts out my perspective, and you can read it here.

               Moving to the draft, this is where Mike Grier and company got to work on fixing the mess that he inherited. Much like my take on Bedard to Chicago last season, the Sharks get no credit for making the obvious choice on a player in Macklin Celebrini. The only discourse about Celebrini (and to a similar extent Will Smith) is whether his rookie season will look more like Bedard’s or Fantilli’s. Nine picks later, the Sharks selected London Knights’ defenseman Sam Dickinson. Simply, Dickinson factors to be an exceptional second-pairing two-way defenseman in the long term, with the potential to be a Hampus Lindholm-type contributor for the Sharks if they handle his development correctly. Despite how his point-per-game pace in the OHL may look on its face to the casual observer, he is not going to be another Brent Burns or Erik Karlsson for the Sharks. At the top of the second round, the Sharks also took Igor Chernyshov, an intriguing forward who played with Dynamo Moskva of the MHL. A great puck handler already, Chernyshov, if developed properly, could be an incredibly versatile middle-six forward at the NHL level. North America, and Sam Dickinson especially, will get a good look at him this season as Chernyshov will be joining the rival Saginaw Spirit of the OHL.

In the late stages of the August, Mike Grier made a deal with the Nashville Predators to address the team’s long-term goaltending situation. The Sharks acquired Yaroslav Askarov, Nolan Burke, and a 2025 3rd round pick in exchange for David Edstrom, Marnus Chrona, and a conditional 2025 1st round draft pick. On the surface, this is an excellent trade, as Askarov’s performances for the the Predators (limited sample size) and Milwaukee Admirals has left little doubt in my mind that he will be anything other than a star. At this point, Burke looks to just be a contract to sit in the Sharks’ ECHL and AHL affiliates based on his recent performances (15 points in 47 games played for the ECHL’s Atlanta Gladiators). The only part of this trade that feels underwhelming for the Sharks is that Edstrom and the 1st round pick that was included in the deal were the entirety of the return from their trade deadline selloff of Tomas Hertl. Based solely on those details, it really paints the picture of how much of an undersell that deal was for both the organization and a longtime franchise star in Hertl.

               Overall, the Sharks should be better this season than they were in 2023-24. Their offseason gets an obligatory A, because they upgraded every part of their team. My advisement to fans and analysts alike this season is to remember that there is still a lot of room for growth and development for the young core of this team, and to not expect Celebrini and Smith to take the league by storm, especially in the win column, in their first season. Additionally, it would be unwise to expect Askarov to set the world on fire and play more than 45 games this season, as he still does need at least a year to adjust to being a full time starter in the world’s best professional league. The foundation for the rebuild has been laid, and the rest is up to long term coaching and development.