San Jose Sharks NsHL 2013 Entry Draft results

Here are the results of the 2013 Entry Draft for the San Jose Sharks:

4th overall - Alexsander Barkov (Centre) - Blessed with ideal size and strength for the center position at the National Hockey League level, he competes for every square inch of ice. Produces good numbers thanks to his poise and playmaking ability. Must prove he can be a dominant figure in North America. In fact, he may need to amp up his physicality in order to do so. Must also live up to expectations as the son of a legendary player in his hometown.

35th overall (Pick acquired in deal with Anaheim) - Robert Hagg (Defense) - Is a tremendous puck mover with a smooth skating stride. Can play an effective shutdown role, mostly because of an extremely active stick. Can log huge amounts of ice time. Has the size NHL scouts love but must learn how to use it more effectively (and more often) in order to maximize his potential at the highest level. Isn't a natural point producer.

138th overall - Mitchell Wheaton (Defence) - Big stay-at-home defenseman. Wants to be a hockey player and will work hard and improving all parts of his game. Already over 225 pounds. Big, but docile. He gets picked apart and skaters blow by him, because he hasn't perfected his turns and hasn't even caught up to the WHL speed. Will need to continue gaining quickness and strength but looks like a long-term project. 

184th overall - Jacob Jackson (Centre) - A high school centre who displays good all-around abilities and creativity. Is developing a strong two-way game and is tough. Projects as a versatile forward who can slide anywhere on a teams bottom six...if he continues to get strong and improve his game. 

188th overall - Emil Galimov (Left Wing) - A 6`1`` winger who plays in the KHL.  Had 7 goals and 13 assists in 33 games playing for Yaroslavl Lokomotiv.  Had decent size for NHL but needs to pack on some muscle as he`s only listed at 163 lbs.  Looks to be a long term project.

Sharks/Citadels hand out awards, Rolston retires

After the Citadels, the Sharks AsHL affiliate, was eliminated from the AsHL playoffs, the Sharks and the Citadels held their awards night.  The Sharks handed out the following awards:

Forward of the year - Patrick Marleau/Kyle Okposo
Dman of the year - Dustin Byfuglien
Hardest Hitter Award (Most hits) - Dustin Byfuglien
Best Plus/Minus - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
Trigger Happy Award (Most Shots) - Patrick Marleau
Best Faceoff Percentage - Patrick Marleau
Rookie of the Year - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
Most Valuable Player - Patrick Marleau/Kyle Okposo

The Citadels handed out the following awards:

Forward of the year - Brian Rolston
Dman of the year - Matt Walker
Hardest Hitter Award (Most hits) - Scott Nichol
Best Plus/Minus - Vladimir Zharkov
Trigger Happy Award (Most Shots) - Brian Rolston/Alex Giroux
Best Faceoff Percentage - Scott Nichol
Rookie of the Year - Kevin Poulin
Most Valuable Player - Kevin Poulin/Brian Rolston

Also as Brian Rolston was accepting the MVP along side Kevin Poulin, he announced that he would be retiring from NsHL/AsHL.  The Sharks picked up Rolston up in the offseason to add some depth in the Sharks organization.  Rolston played 75 games in Halifax getting 35 goals and 46 assists.  Rolston got called to the Sharks and played 7 games where he registered 1 assist. The Sharks would like to wish Brian Rolston the best of luck in his future endeavors.

Sharks season end report

The Sharks had, what they think for some part, was a disappointing season.  Hoping to be battling for a playoff spot this season, things didn't work out that way and they ended up battling for a high draft pick instead.

"It was definitely disappointing to a degree." Said Sharks GM Kurt Fulmore.  "We thought we'd be in a better position this year, playoff wise.  But after things didn't go as planned, some more dealing took place and we added some more young guys to the squad, some of which we hope will make the pro team as early as fall time."

Not all was dark and dreary for the Sharks season.  Sharks RW Kyle Okposo had a career season scoring 38 goals and having 37 assists for 75 points. Captain Patrick Marleau had over a point a game, scoring 27 goals and having 57 assists.  Rookie centre Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had a solid rookie season with 19 goals and 21 assists for 40 pts.  Sharks netminder Kari Lehtonen had solid numbers despite the team's rough season.  He had a GAA of 2.71 and a save percentage of .913.  Dustin Byfuglien led dmen on the team with 38 pts despite being in the sin bin for 204 minutes this season.

While the Sharks cleared out their lockers in San Jose when the season for them came to a close, Sharks GM Kurt Fulmore was looking forward in the offseason.  Looking towards the 2013 NsHL draft.  After it was all said and done, the Sharks will be selecting 4th overall in the first round.  Rumors are speculating as to who the Sharks may pick with the pick.  If one of Nathan McKinnon or Johnathon Drouin happens to fall to 4th, the Sharks will take one of them.  If those two are gone, looks like Alex Barkov, Valeri Nichushkin or Elias Lindholm are on the Sharks radar.  After their own first rounder the Sharks have the following selections:  Buffalo's 3rd (74th), St. Louis' 3rd, (80th), Boston's 3rd (84th), Toronto's 3rd (86th), Minnesota's 5th (138th), their own 7th(184th), Anaheim's 7th (188th) and Colorado's 7th (205th).

After the draft is done, looks like the Sharks' scouting staff will be out and about again seeing who might be making the jump to the pro team or at least to the Sharks AsHL affiliate, the Halifax Citadels.

Speaking of Halifax, as of press time, the Citadels were up 3 games to 1 in their first round AsHL series against the Chicago Wolves.

Wheelin' and Dealin'

Apr. 24/13 - A lot of games have passed since the last post.  The San Jose Sharks are currently sitting 14th in the West with a record of 20-29-4 for a total of 44 pts.  The Sharks have had a pretty rough season and it  seems that a few weeks ago, Sharks GM Kurt Fulmore pushed the trade button and went to town on a few deals.

The Sharks sent LW Guillaume Latendresse to Montreal for goalie prospect Petr Mrazek.

The next day, the Sharks sent goalie Pascal Leclaire to Boston for Boston's 3rd rounder in the 2013 draft.

At the beginning of the month, the Sharks sent farm vet Brendan Morrison to Ottawa for Ottawa's 5th in the 2013 draft.

Petr Mrazek wasn't property of the Sharks for very long as they sent the goalie prospect, along with Alex Picard and 1.5 million dollars to Minnesota for LW Sean Avery, prospect Jakob Silfverberg and Minnesota's 3rd rounder in the 2014 draft.

The next deal for the Sharks saw defenseman Richard Petiot to Nashville for dman Jake Muzzin, SJ's 5th in the 2014 draft and Nashville's 3rd in the 2015 draft.

Brooks Orpik was the next one headed out.  He was dealt to St. Louis for dman Mark Eaton, dman Brandon Burlon and St. Louis' 3rd in the 2015 draft.

Sharks just kept on dealing.  They flipped Mark Eaton, along with Buffalo's 4th in the 2013 draft to Nashville for Nashville's 2nd rounder in the 2014 draft.

Then in a strange turn of events, the Sharks sent LW Sean Avery back to Minnesota for prospect Dominik Uher and St. Louis' 3rd in the 2013 draft.

The Sharks have the NsHL rights to Mikael Granlund.  I guess they like what they see in his younger brother.  The Sharks sent Ottawa's 5th in the 2013 draft to Boston for centre prospect Markus Granlund.

The Sharks swung some more minor deals in the last couple of weeks.

The Sharks sent Toronto's 5th in the 2014 draft to Carolina for D prospect Adam Polasek.

The Sharks then sent C/RW Marc-Antoine Pouliot to Vancouver for prospect Max Friberg.

The Sharks sent prospect Carson McMillan and Minnesota's 7th in the 2013 draft to Boston for farm C/LW Dustin Jeffrey.

The Sharks also saw some movement via the waiver wire.  The Sharks picked up dman Willie Mitchell up on waivers from the Carolina Hurricanes.  In an effort to save some money and send him to the farm, the Sharks lost vet RW Daniel Alfredsson to waivers as he went to Calgary.

Sharks GM Kurt Fulmore said the last few weeks have been filled with lots of work on the phone.  He feels he may have pushed the panic button a little too early but thinks even though they have probably taken a step back, he may have added some more good pieces to the future of the franchise.

The Sharks look to be just riding the waves of the rest of the season as they are no where near getting a playoff spot and are probably already looking forward to the 2013 draft.

The Sharks do have some bright points to the season so far.  RW Kyle Okposo has scored 25 goals on the season.  Sharks rookie RNH has 24 pts (13 G, 11 A) for 3rd in rookie scoring.  Dustin Byfuglien has 22 points (2G and 20 A) and is 15th in defenseman scoring.  Patrick Marleau has 31 assists and is 20th in the league in that category and is 45th overall in points for the league. And even despite the team's rough season, Sharks netminder Kari Lehtonen is still posting decent numbers. (2.6 GAA, .904 save percentage. )

THN Top 50 prospects NsHL style

Picked up the Hockey News Future watch issue today and figured I'd translate the top 50 prospect rankings if it were the NsHL version.  I marked in brackets if said prospects is playing in the NsHL or AsHL.  Enjoy,  guys!!

#1 Vladimir Tarasenko - Buffalo
#2 Justin Schultz - Detroit
#3 Evengy Kuznetsov - NYR
#4 Dougie Hamilton - Edmonton
#5 Nail Yakupov - Tampa Bay
#6 Alex Galchenyuk - Edmonton
#7 Mikeal Granlund - San Jose
#8 Jonathan Huberdeau - Columbus
#9 Ryan Muray - Phoenix
#10 Jacob Trouba - Columbus
#11 John Gibson - LA
#12 Hampus Lindholm - Colorado
#13 Ryan Strome - Toronto
#14 Mark Scheifele - Chicago
#15 Sven Baertschi - Colorado
#16 - Mikhail Grigorenko - Carolina
#17 Mika Zibanejad - Phoenix
#18 Jakob Silfverberg - Minnesota
#19 Morgan Rielly - Columbus
#20 Chris Kreider - Philly
#21 Filip Forsberg - San Jose
#22 Jonas Brodin - Toronto
#23 Griffin Reinhart - NYI
#24 Robin Lehner - Carolina (AsHL)
#25 Andrey Vasilevskiy - Toronto
#26 Brendan Smith - Tampa Bay (AsHL)
#27 Charlie Coyle - Florida
#28 Boone Jenner - Chicago
#29 Jaden Schwartz - Chicago
#30 Jacob Markstrom - San Jose
#31 Calle Jarnkrok - Ottawa
#32 Brandon Gormley - NYI
#33 Brandon Saad - St. Louis
#34 Teuvo Teravainen - Anaheim
#35 Scott Laughton - Toronto
#36 Nick Bjugstad - Edmonton
#37 Oscar Klefbom - Anaheim
#38 J.T. Miller - NYR (AsHL)
#39 Tomas Hertl - Phoenix
#40 Olli Maatta - Carolina
#41 Nathan Beaulieu - Minnesota
#42 Derrick Pouliot - Boston
#43 Joel Armia - Vancouver
#44 Marcus Foligno - Ottawa
#45 Malcolm Subban - Winnipeg
#46 Brett Ritchie - NYI
#47 Mathew Dumba - Carolina
#48 Rickard Rakell - Carolina
#49 Zemgus Girgensons - Toronto
#50 John Gaudreau - NYI

10 games in.

Mar 14/13 - The San Jose Sharks started out good two games in, but now at 10 games in, haven't fared very well so far.  The Sharks have a 4-6-0 record for 8 pts.  Sharks forwards Patrick Marleau and Kyle Okposo have been the only hot ones so far this season with Marleau (4G, 6A) and Okposo (6G, 4A) both getting 10 pts so far this season.  The team's best defensive d-man, Richard Petiot, is sitting at -9.  The team's starting netminder has been having trouble finding his groove so far as he sits with a 3.86 GAA and a .876 save percentage.  It was heard that Lehtonen will get the next game off to give him a rest or maybe something to spark some better player out of the starting netminder.  Nikolai Khabibulin and Pascal Leclaire will be the goaltending tandem going into tonight's game.  "Kari's had some trouble." Said Sharks GM Kurt Fulmore.  "It's only 10 games in, not time to hit the panic button yet.  But this also provides Nikolai and Pascal an opportunity to show who deserves the backup spot behind Kari and who deserves to get moved or send to Halifax.  So it'll give Kari a night off a chance to see these 2 compete."

The Sharks pulled the trigger on a deal yesterday just before last night's game in an effort to help boost some offence.  The Sharks dealt Pittsburgh's 2nd and Toronto's 6th in 2013 to Carolina for Alex Picard and Toronto's 3rd in 2013.  Picard was picked up in hopes of sparking some 3rd line offence along with Jaromir Jagr.  Maybe it'll will spark some offense to the second line as well as they've been slow to get going after the first 2 games of the season.

Sharks first win, Nugent-Hopkins first goal

Mar 2/13 - The San Jose Sharks didn't waste any time picking up their first win of the season by defeating the defending Cup champs, the St. Louis Blues, to a score of 5-4.  Sharks rookie Ryan Nugent-Hopkins also didn't waste time scoring his first NsHL goal.  "It was awesome!!!"  Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said in his first post game interview.  "Every kid dreams of scoring that first NsHL goal and it's just a bonus when you do it in your first game.  I'm glad to get that monkey off my back and now I hope I keep it going."

Ryan Nugent Hopkins celebrating his first NsHL goal.

Kyle Okposo started the season off on a good foot as well scoring twice in the victory over the Blues.  "Not only did I get one to get the season going, I got two." Said Sharks forward Kyle Okposo.  "We were all anxious and excited to see how tonight would go.  With the new additions to the team in the form of Nuge and Bogosian being signed to the team in the offseason and Jagr coming in via free agency, there was a bit of a new look to the team and we were all curious as to what we could do out there.  Tonight we did pretty good for the most part.

The first win of the season looks like it has come with a cost already.  Sharks D-man Dustin Byfuglien is out for 6 days with a hand injury and left winger Guillaume Latendresse is out for one day with a leg injury.  Brian Rolston and Justin Braun have been called up from Halifax to fill in for the injured players.

AsHL Halifax Citadels - On the farm side of things, the Halifax Citadels lost 2-1 in overtime to the Manitoba Moose.  Brian Rolston scored the lone goal for Hailfax while Kevin Poulin played great in his AsHL debut stopping 29 of 31 shots.

Sharks swing one more deal, face Blues to start season

Mar 1/13 - The San Jose Sharks made one more deal before the season as set to start on Saturday.  The Sharks sent their 5th round selection in the 2014 draft to Nashville for high flying, crash and banging Jordin Tootoo.

The Sharks start the season off taking on the best in the league.  They play their first game versus the defending NsHL champs, the St. Louis Blues.  The game will hopefully not be a cakewalk for the Blues as the Sharks have improved since last season with some new additions to their lineup.  Young playmaker Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and dman Zach Bogosian were signed off the Sharks prospect list this offseason and are looking to make good things happen for the Sharks.

Here are the Sharks season opening lineup:

Marleau - Latendresse - Okposo
RNH - Skinner - Eberle
Guite - Thorburn - Jagr
Pouliot - Tootoo - Alfredsson

Petiot - Byfuglien
Bogosian - Timonen
Orpik - Sauer

Lehtonen - Leclaire

Sharks swing 2 deals before season start

Feb 28/13 - The San Jose Sharks have pulled the trigger on 2 deals before the start of the season.  The first, which has already been reported on the NsHL forum, was tough guy D.J. King to Columbus for dman prospect Andrew McWilliam.  The second deal was with the rival Anaheim Ducks.  The Sharks sent Minnesota's 4th round selection in the 2013 draft to Anaheim for rental Ben Guite, farm center Corey Locke and Anaheim's 7th round selection in the 2013 draft.

"We like this deal." Said Sharks GM Kurt Fulmore.  "We looked at getting a 3rd line player in free agency and that didn't happen so we had to trade for one.  Even though we only have Guite for one season, we feel he'll do alright on the 3rd line with Jagr.  Getting a pick back and some depth doesn't hurt either.  I've had some luck with later picks so I feel good about this deal overall."