The offseason has arrived for half of the league’s teams that aren’t taking part in the playoffs.  Accordingly, it’s now time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months.  First up is a look at San Jose.

As expected, it was another tough year for San Jose.  They integrated two of their top prospects into the lineup in forwards Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith while acquiring their goalie of the future in Yaroslav Askarov.  From a long-term prospect standpoint, they’re doing well.  But the on-ice product this year didn’t yield many points with the Sharks finishing last in the standings once again.  That means that GM Mike Grier has a big checklist to take care of this summer.

Add A Veteran Goalie

While Askarov is their goalie of the future, their goalie of the present has been in flux in recent years.  Mackenzie Blackwood, Kaapo Kahkonen, Vitek Vanecek, and Alexandar Georgiev all had opportunities over the last couple of seasons but none of them were able to get the job done.  The first three have since been traded or let go in free agency while Georgiev won’t be retained either.  Meanwhile, although Georgi Romanov has shown some promise, he’s far from being ready to take on a full-time role in the NHL.  As a result, they’re going to need to look outside the organization to fill this spot.

Askarov will be starting a two-year, $4MM bridge contract next season and while he’s their long-term solution between the pipes, he only has 16 games of NHL experience while injuries have limited him to 35 games so far (though that will go up at least a bit more in the AHL playoffs).  With that in mind, he may not be getting penciled in as their undisputed number one goalie.  That means that they’ll enter free agency as one of the teams potentially looking for a short-term starter.

The good news for the Sharks is that there shouldn’t be too many teams looking for that type of goaltender.  The bad news is that there aren’t many, if any, of those players out there.  Consider that there is just one pending UFA who played more than 41 games (half the schedule) this season.  That was Georgiev and we know he’s not coming back.

Someone like Jake Allen would make sense for the Sharks.  He’s used to being in a rebuilding environment already from his time with Montreal and could theoretically be the strong-side platoon goalie next season before flipping roles with Askarov the following year.  Ilya Samsonov didn’t have a great market last summer but if there’s a shot at a short-term path to being a starter, he could be intrigued by the Sharks while if they want a bit of potential upside, Daniel Vladar is the youngest UFA goalie on the market as he won’t turn 28 until August.  It’s not a deep list to choose from by any stretch but Grier should be able to land a short-term partner for Askarov to get through the next year or two.

Eklund Extension Talks

If it feels like William Eklund has been around for a while, he has.  He saw close to the maximum NHL time without starting his contract in his first two seasons so he already has 174 career appearances at the top level under his belt.  He still has one year left on his deal which means he will be eligible for an extension on July 1st.

In 2023-24, the 22-year-old had his first full NHL campaign and did pretty well, notching 16 goals and 29 assists in 80 games.  Had he been eligible, he likely would have received some down-ballot Calder Trophy voting but by virtue of playing more than six games in the previous two seasons, he was no longer eligible for the award.  He improved on those numbers this year, tallying 17 goals and 41 helpers in 77 appearances, finishing second to Celebrini in team scoring.  Drafted seventh overall in 2021, the hope was that Eklund could become a core center for the Sharks.  Things haven’t gone well when he has played down the middle but he has settled in nicely as a core winger and is someone Grier will likely look to get locked up now.

While there are some big-ticket contracts coming in a couple of years from now, San Jose’s cap situation is about as clean as they come; only one player is signed past the 2026-27 campaign.  In other words, there’s ample room for Eklund and the two rookies (Celebrini and Smith) to ink long-term deals without needing to be worried about complicating things cap-wise down the road.

Finding the right price tag will be interesting.  The projected increases to the salary cap for the next few years bring a new element into play that we haven’t seen before and it’s one that’s going to make contracts like this go higher than they have before.  Under the older system that didn’t have projections, an AAV starting with a seven on a long-term deal would seem like a reasonable range for Eklund.  But with the quicker increases, it wouldn’t be surprising to see his camp aim higher than that to get him to put pen to paper on a new deal early.

Leverage Cap Space

Let’s dig into their cap situation a little further.  Per PuckPedia, the Sharks have nearly $44MM in cap room for next season.  Their most expensive pending restricted free agent is Klim Kostin ($2MM) but he’s a non-tender candidate.  Most of their other RFAs are coming off entry-level deals and are likely heading for bridge contracts that won’t be too cost-prohibitive.  They only have a handful of spots to fill on their roster and a lot of spending to do simply to get to the spending floor of $70.6MM, a number they’re nearly $20MM below at the moment.

Unfortunately for San Jose, acting as a third-party retainer in a trade is probably off the table.  Two of their three retention slots are encumbered through 2026-27 (Tomas Hertl’s runs through 2029-30) and while the Brent Burns one will come off the books, that will only happen on July 1st.  The bulk of the heavy trade activity tends to happen before free agency opens up so they probably won’t be able to use it early.  Additionally, they probably will want to keep a spot available to help facilitate a trade in-season closer to the trade deadline as they’re likely to be sellers once again next season.

But teams looking to offload a pricey contract should be calling the Sharks.  They can easily absorb a big-ticket expiring contract or two and pick up some future assets (likely draft picks) for doing so.  They could also look to take on a multi-year deal like they did with Barclay Goodrow last spring if they feel the player can be part of their medium-term plans.  Again, in most of those instances, they’d be compensated for alleviating the other team’s cap concern.  It’s low-hanging fruit, so to speak, but utilizing some of their cap space to take on some unwanted deals will garner them some future assets and assuming the player isn’t injured, the moves would also upgrade their roster as well.

Add A Bridge Center

One area that they might have to turn to free agency to try to fill is center.  Mikael Granlund logged heavy minutes for them to take some pressure off Celebrini while allowing Smith to ease in on the wing.  Following his trade to Dallas, Smith stayed away from his natural position with Alexander Wennberg taking on a bigger role.  Wennberg isn’t a true top-six option at this point while it appears that they weren’t comfortable putting Smith there yet.  We also know Eklund has settled in on the wing so they’d likely prefer to keep him there as well.  Accordingly, there’s a top-six opening to be filled.

The challenge here for the Sharks will be selling themselves in a market where a lot of teams, including some very competitive ones, will be trying to fill that particular role.  This is where their cap space can be an asset as they can comfortably overpay on a shorter-term offer or if they find someone they like longer-term, they’ll be more comfortable than most adding a year or two if it helps get something done.

In terms of who they’d likely consider, the top veterans are probably out of reach.  Granlund makes a lot of sense and he didn’t close the door on a return following his trade to Dallas.  Sam Bennett is one they’d likely be interested in but it would be surprising to see San Jose be the top bidder there if he makes it to the open market.  Ryan Donato could be more of an upside swing if they think his breakout year with Chicago could be repeatable.  Brock Nelson is one they could afford but they might have to overpay on term to get something done.  There are some options out there but they won’t be the easiest to get.

On top of trying to fill that spot, adding a bottom-six option as well would be useful with both Nico Sturm and Luke Kunin being shipped out at the deadline.  Ty Dellandrea and Zack Ostapchuk finished out the year in those spots but it wouldn’t be shocking to see them try to upgrade on the third line at a minimum.  This one could be filled via the trade route but it’s a bit easier to land these types of players in free agency.  Either way, while the Sharks are still in a spot where they don’t need to be loading up with several additions, they will want to look for some help down the middle in the coming months.

Photo courtesy of D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images.