When the Sharks signed Tomas Hertl to a
massive contract a couple seasons ago, knowing this probably would mean they
couldn't keep Timo Meier, I thought they'd chosen the wrong player. Well, now
neither player is still with the team.
As if trading Hertl a few days
ago wasn't bad enough, he got sent to the Sharks' bitter archrivals in Vegas.
This adds Hertl to the list of top-level players dispatched from the team in
recent years. Besides Hertl and Meier, the list also includes Joe Pavelski, who
wasn't re-signed, and Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson, who were traded. (Did I
leave anybody out?). It's no wonder the team is now in last place, when all
these great players are sent elsewhere.
Funny how I've actually spoken
a few seconds to all five of these players at times. All nice guys. Now,
they're all playing elsewhere. So what happens next for Sharks fans and what
has to be done to get the now-mostly-empty Shark Tank filled with fans again?
Well, the Sharks have a bunch of young players either on the team, on the
Barracuda, in college, juniors, or playing overseas.
The list of potential Sharks superstars features a
bunch of youngsters, ranging from Will Smith, who has tallied 57, count'em, 57
points at Boston College this season in 34 games; Quentin Musty, with 84 -
gasp! - points in 46 junior games this season; Thomas Bordeleau, who just came
back from the minors and scored two goals in Saturday's Sharks victory over the
Senators; Shakir Mukhamadullin who has 27 points as a defenseman with the
Barracuda this season and one point in three games for the Sharks, and, just
acquired in the Hertl trade, David Edstrom, with eight points in 16 games
played in Sweden international juniors this season.
There's other
young players awaiting their Sharks arrival too, including Danil Guschin, an
AHL All Star with 37 points in 42 games so far this year. Another topnotch
player may be available to the Sharks early in the 2024 entry draft, too.
For Sharks fans, there will be no playoffs this year, the fifth
consecutive season without making th post season. Things, though, hopefully can
only look better in a few seasons when these young players and more arrive to
play with the Sharks. Maybe, at long last, the Sharks can even win the Stanley
Cup, something some of us have been waiting for more than 30 years to happen.
