Year 1.5 into the rebuild, smashing success so far?

[themelkman]

Previous regime seemed to have a hard time with it considering they were trading picks for short term upgrades and extending old players until the bitter end.

For sure the direction was wrong there, but if they actually acknowledged the issue and tried to rebuild it could be in a very similar situation.

Getting rid of players is the easy part, getting good players is where actual ability is required.

 

[Hodge]

The proper treatment of Logan Couture: Thanks for putting your body on the line and giving us ten years plus of great hockey

Sharks fans during this time: Logan may be too crippled to ever play again? Sweet! What luck!

 

[Hodge]

Curious where this is coming from? I haven't heard all that much on Hagens yet other than he is the current favourite to be the 2025 1OA.

It's completely misinformed. There was a discussion not long ago on the Athletic podcast between Pronman and Chris Peters about how Hagens isn't even the consensus 1OA anymore.

For sure the direction was wrong there, but if they actually acknowledged the issue and tried to rebuild it could be in a very similar situation.

Getting rid of players is the easy part, getting good players is where actual ability is required.

But they didn't. If DW had been left in charge he would have certainly extended Meier as well, leaving us with yet another immoveable contract to a veteran player whose only purpose would be to weaken our draft position.

Nobody is saying the rebuild is guaranteed to result in a Cup. But so far Grier has done everything right, despite being criticized each step of the way, and he deserves credit for that.

 

[themelkman]

It's completely misinformed. There was a discussion not long ago on the Athletic podcast between Pronman and Chris Peters about how Hagens isn't even the consensus 1OA anymore.


But they didn't. If DW had been left in charge he would have certainly extended Meier as well, leaving us with yet another immoveable contract to a veteran player whose only purpose would be to weaken our draft position.

Nobody is saying the rebuild is guaranteed to result in a Cup. But so far Grier has done everything right, despite being criticized each step of the way, and he deserves credit for that.

His direction is fine, I haven’t seen any smart people upset we are finally rebuilding. He gets criticized for his trade and player evaluation, which is so far unimpressive at best.

 

[Herschel]

His direction is fine, I haven’t seen any smart people upset we are finally rebuilding. He gets criticized for his trade and player evaluation, which is so far unimpressive at best.

Since he really hasn't made any signature or impact additions not sure it makes any sense to grade his player evaluation. Even if you are going to, Id' argue he has had a number of wins.

 

[SjMilhouse]

To date, gone as well as I think anyone could reasonably hope. With that said, this is the "easy" part and we will soon be entering the portion of the rebuild that determines if this ends in a few years or ends up starting the clock over.

I'm interested to see:

1. How do picks actually develop as they start moving into the NHL and how do they look 3+ years into that experience

2. How does Grier evaluate talent and build a team around a potentially solid group of prospect (assuming they develop) either via FA or trades

Those 2 will more or less determine whether he actually succeeds or fails and from my perspective, it either goes really well or really bad. If it goes bad, we're looking at a loooooong time to fix this and that's my fear.

 

[Hodge]

I agree that in 99% of cases the "tearing down is the easy part of the rebuild" adage applies...but the situation Grier inherited was absolutely an exception.

Remember, we had credible media reports that prospective GM candidates didn't want to interview with the Sharks because they thought the situation was too hopeless.

Two years ago, none of us could have even dreamed that the Karlsson and Hertl contracts would be gone less than two years later let alone that those players would land us three 1st round picks including one in the top 15.

Of course there's a long way to go and much of the future trajectory will be dependent on lottery luck but what Grier has accomplished in two years to even get us to this point is truly stunning.

 

[Pavelski2112]

The proper treatment of Logan Couture: Thanks for putting your body on the line and giving us ten years plus of great hockey

Sharks fans during this time: Logan may be too crippled to ever play again? Sweet! What luck!

No one has been celebrating that. It's been tough to see how far he fell in such a short time, and we've all been feeling for him that he hasn't been able to even get out on the ice. Hodge even made the point that he wouldn't have been able to change this franchise's lottery chances even if he was 100% healthy and back to his former self.

 

[TheBeard]

No one has been celebrating that. It's been tough to see how far he fell in such a short time, and we've all been feeling for him that he hasn't been able to even get out on the ice. Hodge even made the point that he wouldn't have been able to change this franchise's lottery chances even if he was 100% healthy and back to his former self.

I mean, we all (including myself), have been acknowledging it's a blessing for him to potentially be potentially done. I'm for sure one of them, but it's amazing how our opinion of players change based on our current climate.

 

[Gecklund]

Definitely keep it going but as for the question in the OP, I think it’s too early to say “smashing success.” Need to wait for the prospects to make the NHL.

 

[Boy Hedican]

Way too early to call any success. Losing is the one thing any team can do, coming back is where a GM can actually be evaluated

To call ANY success? Lol ok. And no, not every team can lose.

Forgive me if I’m mistaken, but you’ve been skeptical of GMMG this entire time ya? Can’t give him any credit?

(Again pardon if I’m mistaken)

 

[TheBigDrunkPanda]

Those who think he could've gotten better trade returns, what makes you think that?

Meier trade return looks amazing.

Karlsson trade; PIT was the only team rumoured to be interested...so how can we do better if there is no bidding war, and he's making 11.5M.

Hertl trade: It wasn't even rumoured he was available to trade, so as far as we know VGK was the only team interested. Again, we never see people with that much term traded, so what else could we have gotten?

Reality is > rumors, the reports came out multiple teams were kicking the tires on Hertl and none of that was in the rumors mill.

Mier trade looks like a wash at best Zetterlund had a career year as a 3rd liner playing top minutes Mier ended the season with 28 goals so clearly Ruff was the problem. Muk is looking like a 2/3 at best. Musty is probably the best long term thing that came out of that trade and he’s a tweener 6/7 forward.

Karlsson trade with the retention should’ve been a zero no top 10 protection,
Burns trade was absolute garbage

 

[Sysreq]

I want to add that GMMG did all that contract trading on contracts with a 3-team NTC. They all more or less told him where they wanted to go and he was able to make it happen. Getting those contracts to teams that were trying to be competitive and not just someone trying to hit the cap floor is even more amazing when you think about it. Plus you look at the deal he made with NJD at the deadline and it's clear he is building relationships and goodwill that will pay off down the line. He isn't trying to "win" at the other teams expense.

 

[STL Shark]

GMMG could have asked for a bit more from the Hertl trade. Don't know if David Edstrom ever could be 4th line center. Plus on top of that we lose a 3rd rounder and 17% retention for 6 more years hurts.

I could ask you for a million dollars. Doesn't mean you're going to give it to me.

This idea that Grier could have gotten more and chose not to get it is ludicrous. The market is what the market is when you have a guy that's going to be playing his age 31 thru 36 seasons at a large cap hit and is coming off of his 3rd or 4th knee surgery as a professional (oh and he has a 3 team trade list too).

 

[Pinkfloyd]

I don't think I'd call it a smashing success yet but it's largely everything that needed to be done to push the team forward to its next competitive era. I hope next year affords younger players more NHL opportunities but it's too early to know. Until the lottery and draft happens, we're probably waiting in terms of seeing a direction for next year.

 

[Hodge]

GMMG could have asked for a bit more from the Hertl trade. Don't know if David Edstrom ever could be 4th line center. Plus on top of that we lose a 3rd rounder and 17% retention for 6 more years hurts.

Edstrom at 19 years old is scoring almost half a point per game in one of the best pro leagues in the world. The only way he doesn't become at least a 4th line center is if he sustains a career-ending injury.

 

[LilLeeroy]

I mean, we all (including myself), have been acknowledging it's a blessing for him to potentially be potentially done. I'm for sure one of them, but it's amazing how our opinion of players change based on our current climate.

And as long as the ridiculous 8 year contracts are a thing in a hard cap league, fans will be cheering when former stars are off the books.

 

[Juxtaposer]

Curious where this is coming from? I haven't heard all that much on Hagens yet other than he is the current favourite to be the 2025 1OA.

Hagens is absolutely not better than Celebrini. I like him a lot, but I’d take Celebrini 11 times out of 10 over Hagens. Celebrini is only like four months older than Hagens, by the way.

 

[LilLeeroy]

Edstrom at 19 years old is scoring almost half a point per game in one of the best pro leagues in the world. The only way he doesn't become at least a 4th line center is if he sustains a career-ending injury.

Seriously, players far better than current Hertl were traded at the deadline this year and none of them got a prospect like Edstrom in return. That's not even considering the completely unprotected 1st round pick and getting rid of most of Hertl's horrible contract.

 

[Skeksis25]

"Smashing success" to me would be if he was responsible for acquiring a core group that you could be confident in building around to be a playoff regular and eventually Cup contenders for a decade. He hasn't done that yet, although its too early to judge him on that. Lets see in a couple years where we are.

For now, the best we can say about him is "He has done really well with the hand he was dealt". Which is cool and all, but the goal is to build a winning team. He has laid the building blocks to do so, but until that actually turns into something good, I'm not calling it a smashing success, or even any kind of success. But I am also not sitting here going Oh god he is clueless, get rid of him.

 

[Dicdonya]

I cannot find any reason to call this rebuild a smashing success at this exact moment. Since that was the question, I say no. I would also say no to this being a massive failure if the question were reversed.

I think Grier has made some good moves, some bad moves and some whatever moves.

We have not even had a single one of his draft picks play in the NHL yet, and considering the draft is the most important factor for whether this rebuild is going to be a smashing success or not, I fail to see why it would be deemed as such already.

He has wasted picks for players, there is plenty of argument about the returns he got for certain players, a lot of his player pickups have been either completely useless or bad. However on the other hand he has gotten a few 1sts for us, some of his player pickups have been either fine or a pleasant surprise, and while he has wasted some picks for players they've all been mid/late round picks which hold very little value.

In short, I think Grier is doing fine, but would not qualify it as a smashing success at this point, its simply too early to tell.

 

[Mattb124]

I give MG a B so far. Drafting and clearing the cap slate have been a +, but he has moved a number of middling picks for meh players (not sure that really amounts to much) and he didn’t do as well as I had hoped at the TDL in terms of converting expiring contracts to draft picks.

 

[Sharksfan66]

Jury is still out for me. Grier has done an admirable job, but I'll wait to see how the draft lottery goes before passing judgment on how things are going.

To those who would say the lottery is outside of his control, I'd say that all success in this league involves some luck. We joke all the time about how the Sharks have terrible luck (and rightfully so), but we haven't been entirely without luck (i.e., DW calling about Samsonov & finding out Jumbo was available, Nabby going from 9th round pick to all star, the 5 minute major against Vegas). Without these lucky breaks, I think we'd look back on the DW era as far less successful than we do. So it will be with Grier IMO. If we land Mack this June and make some smart signings, I'd say Grier is doing a fantastic job.

 

[themelkman]

To call ANY success? Lol ok. And no, not every team can lose.

Forgive me if I’m mistaken, but you’ve been skeptical of GMMG this entire time ya? Can’t give him any credit?

(Again pardon if I’m mistaken)

I’m very critical yes. I’m willing to call a good move when I see it, but nothing he has done has blown my socks off yet.

I’ve actually warmed up on him a lot and I think he’s more competent than I thought he would be, but I don’t see anything that sets him apart from any other just okay gms. I just don’t see him being the guy who can create a winning team out of this mess.

 

[Juxtaposer]

We should probably wait until some of these prospects pan out before patting ourselves on the back.