Pool Outlook for San Jose

Was there enough drama with the San Jose Sharks this season?  Star players and management in public battles and the team missed the playoffs for the first time since the 2003 season.

The coaching staff has since parted ways with the club, likely sick of being stuck in the middle, and having missed the playoffs for the first time in their tenure.  Management has already been slated to be sticking around, which keeps the drama interesting going forward, as the star players, who are signed on for a few more years on top of this past one, are seemingly running the show.  Management will have to find some strict new coaches to get everyone in line, which should make for an interesting Summer.

All of this drama has taken away from how abysmal this season really was for the Sharks, as they finished 22nd overall in the NHL standings, 23rd overall in goals against.  It's hard to really pinpoint where it all went wrong for the Sharks, but it really seemed like no one was buying into the overall system, but their skill was good enough to win some games, only missing the playoffs by 10 points.

The Sharks have been a popular team in the draft pool in recent years, but even they have taken a tumble there as well.  At the end of the season, the Sharks had 10 players active in the hockey pool, while two were dropped in the year, which is actually less players than what the Columbus Blue Jackets saw in the year and I think that says something.  There will always be a market for Sharks, but how much will they really be worth next season?

The San Jose Sharks are the first team in these outlooks to have a goalie as their best player, which says a lot, given that this was the year of the goalie and a lot of teams were looking to the crease to move forward.  Antti Niemi won 31 games and picked up 75 points in the year, which was good enough for 20th overall in pool scoring and he was 11th in scoring among goalies.  Amazingly, his season wasn't nearly as bad as his team's finish, which should make him a very appealing player on the free agent market, as he is on the verge of becoming unrestricted, come July.

The Sharks still had five forwards that were in the top-184, which would be pool worthy in the 2015 season.  Joe Pavelski finished with 70 points, ranking 30th overall, while Logan Couture finished with 67 points, sitting in 37th.  It has been some time since Joe Thornton and/or Patrick Marleau are in the top two of their forwards, but they were 3-4, with 65 and 57 points, respectively.  Tommy Wingels also had a good season, picking up 36 points in 75 games, quietly making a name for himself.

Brent Burns led all Sharks defensemen, actually staying in the position all year, scoring 17 goals and 60 points in all 82 games, almost scoring forward-like numbers.  Burns was actually the 2nd-best defenseman in points, but his -9 rating was a telling sign that he was having a hard time doing what he was doing in the offensive end in his own end.  Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Justin Braun also had pool worthy years, ranking 68th and 72nd in defense scoring and all three are locked in for the 2016 season.

2016 Pool Outlook

The San Jose Sharks have a number of pool regular players and a lot of them are signed on for the 2016 season, minus a few notables.  The stock on the Sharks may take an even bigger drop, if they don't have the confidence of a starting goalie, which they are without, as of right now.  Management has their hands full with the roster decisions, not to mention the coaching decisions.

The rookie crop in San Jose isn't exceptionally deep, but there are a couple of names emerging as possibilities in camp.  2014 draft picks, Nikolai Goldobin, Julius Bergman and Rourke Chartier, have had their names rolled through the pages of all the hockey magazines and websites.  Goldobin came up huge for Russia at the World Juniors and may get a longer look at camp and there is a good possibility, there could be some spots open up for rookies to make a push.

Free Agency and the Salary Cap

Goaltender Antti Niemi is the headline player for free agency going into the Summer and with the Sharks missing the playoffs this year, the team may be ready to part ways with the Finnish netminder.  He'll be joined by defenseman Matt Irwin, the only other (borderline) pool worthy player heading to market.

Brenden Dillon is about the only interesting player heading to restricted free agency, unless you have some interest in forward Melker Karlsson.  Both players are 24 years old and they have some definite upside, as they both got some decent experience in the 2015 season.

A review of their projected RFA's and UFA's, not to mention the current salary cap situation compared to the projected 2016 salary cap ceiling ($73 million, as per estimates in December).

Needs at the 2015 Entry Draft

The Sharks could really use someone to build around, but by the ninth pick, they might now be out of range for that franchise player.  Their depth down the middle and on defense remains a tad suspect, but with three defensemen already going ahead of the Sharks pick in my pool outlooks, it seems more plausible to look for a centre with their 1st round pick.  Matthew Barzal has an excellent scouting report, which suggests that his skating to open up space in quite good, something that could definitely be an asset with some of the team's high end scoring wingers.

What I Said Last Year, At This Time...

But what does change this Summer has a huge impact on what direction that the Sharks go in during the 2015 regular season. If it is Thornton, Marleau and/or Havlat that finds himself in a trade, each one of those guys are going to affect the team more than the other in their own category. With that being said, a prediction for the 2015 season is going to be very difficult and may end up very vague. The team has already moved Boyle and he'll need to be replaced, so in that they have already moved a big piece without any immediate successor, so that makes things even more difficult. At the rate the team is going, as of before the Draft, I would say that the Sharks will be dropping their way into the wild card race, instead of staying in the Pacific Division race. This could very well open the door for the Coyotes or the Canucks to make a push back up into the top three in the division.

Well, it was Martin Havlat that exited the Sharks organization in the Summer, signing in New Jersey after the frenzy, and the only way the Sharks replaced Dan Boyle, was moving Brent Burns back to the blueline, which did alleviate some of the scoring issues from the back end.  Nevertheless, the dynamic of the team did change for the worse and the team wasn't able to retain their status as a Pacific Division contender and they fell out of the wild card race much sooner than expected.  Still, I would think that the prediction did fairly well, as the Sharks decline was fairly apparent.

In 2016, the culture forecast for the Sharks is still pretty stormy with no sign of letting up right now.  The coaching change will play a big part of how the storm plays out, but I couldn't imagine that there will be too many coaches that will want to walk into that public situation.  With management not budging, according to the top brass of the team, the top players not moving, according to their long-term contracts.  The Sharks will need to pay a goalie to play behind the stars and all of these things will decide the severity of the fate of this team.  Until management or the Thornton/Marleau combination moves, I can't see this team making any big improvements.  It's not impossible for this group to get into the wild card, but it is highly improbable at this point in time.