Merkley is a clone of Goldobin in terms of style. Slender, fast, highy skilled, and defensivel pourous with some question of work ethic and character. I remember being very happy they drafted Goldobin. I did not want another Petrecki-type big physical, yet lower skilled and boring guy. With the exception of cooch, dougie has not drafted a consistent 50+ point player since his first draft is 2003 (pavelski). A few guys have hit 50 points (michalek, clowe, seto...), but noone has established themselves as a perennial top liner. I really want to see the sharks go for a top liner. So, Goldy was either gunna be a superstar or suck. Unfortunately, it seems closer to the latter, and now hes gone.
Merkley will either learn the defensive game, get stronger, and be the next ryan ellis or Torey Krug (or Dan Boble as mentioned)... Or... he'll find himself in the press box for the Cuda after being a complete sieve. Sommer has no patience for players who dont commit defensively, so Merkley is a project, not so unlike Jeremy Roy. Sommer has a big job developing those two, but Merkley will be a home run or complete strike out. Again, Im just fine with that trade-off picking in the 20s. That's the place to go for it....
(as an aside, I am quite interested in what Jon Leonard may become. He had a hell of a freshman year at Umass, and he and ferraro look very interesting. The sharks own the leading scorer and leading defenseman on that team, both accomplishing that as freshman. That's pretty remarkable... I'll be following that team closely this year, and if those two improve, it's gunna be the big steal of the draft out of the 6th round.)