Sharks have restocked the cupboards; now comes the hard part for Mike Grier

SAN JOSE – The San Jose Sharks added the player widely considered the best forward available in this year’s NHL Draft, selecting center Michael Misa second overall at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Friday.

Barring some draft lottery luck next year or beyond, that might be the last time in a while that the Sharks can select such a highly regarded talent, assuming their rebuild goes according to plan.

“Hopefully, soon enough,” said Chris Morehouse, the Sharks’ director of amateur scouting, “we won’t be in these situations where we’re picking one, two, or high.”

With that in mind, the Sharks, who have finished at or near the bottom of the league standings for three consecutive years and are aiming for some improvement next season, hoped to make the most of their non-competitive situation.

Over the last three years, the Sharks, who have traded a handful of veterans for early-round picks, have now drafted nine times inside the top 36, helping them establish arguably the top prospect pool in the NHL.

Selecting higher in the draft, the Sharks have added forwards Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith, Quentin Musty, Kasper Halttunen, and Igor Chernyshov, and defensemen Sam Dickinson.

Celebrini and Smith will enter their second full NHL seasons, and the others will vie for Sharks roster spots in the fall. If they don’t make it full-time this year, they’ll likely be in a better position to challenge for an NHL job in 2026 or 2027.

Now comes Misa, who just turned 18 in February and, surprise, surprise, wants to be in the NHL next year.

“He wants to be the best, he wants to play against the best, so I’m sure this is what he wants to do,” Sharks general manager Mike Grier said of Misa. “But we’re not going to hand him anything. He’s got to come into training camp and try to take a job and earn a spot. We’ll just kind of see how it goes.”

In the first two rounds this weekend, the Sharks also drafted Josh Ravensbergen, believed to be the best goalie available this year, a 6-foot-6, 222-pound project defenseman with upside in Haoxi (Simon) Wang, and a potential future third line center in Cole McKinney. They’re projected to be pro players in due time.

Other players drafted by the Sharks over the weekend face longer odds to make it to the NHL. Filling out the nine-player class were center Teddy Mutryn in the third round, defensemen Ilyas Magomedsultanov and Zack Sharp in the fourth round, center Max Heise in the fifth round, and winger Richard Gallant in the seventh.

“I tell our guys at the beginning of every year, and certainly going into the draft, that this is our one opportunity to impact the organization,” Morehouse said. “We’re not on the road with the team every day, we’re not in the rink, we’re not in San Jose. But trust me, behind the scenes, we are doing everything we possibly can to make a difference in the organization.”

Morehouse and Scott Fitzgerald, San Jose’s director of player personnel, took over the team’s scouting in Aug. 2022, when the team’s prospect pool, other than William Eklund, was short on high-end talent. The Sharks had misfires on at least a couple of late first-round picks and traded others.

“We’re three years in, and I’m really proud of the group,” Morehouse said. “I think we have, in a short amount of time, been able to go out and get some really quality talent, some quality kids.”

But the draft isn’t enough to build a more competitive team. if the Sharks want to improve upon their 20-50-12 record of this past season, as has been stated, they’ve got some work to do in the days ahead.

With the first day of free agency on Tuesday, the Sharks have tens of millions in cap space available, but might face some competition for players they want to add to their team.

Acquiring players via trade is another, and perhaps more realistic, option for the Sharks, who want to insulate their young talent.

“We’ve to surround them with the right pieces,” Grier said. “We don’t want to put too much on these kids and feel like they’ve got to carry the franchise. So we’ve got to surround them with the right guys who are maybe their mid-20s or so.

“We’ve got to put some pieces around them and keep building and not get complacent in any parts in the organization.”

Trading No. 2 pick?

Grier said Friday that a few teams called to inquire whether the Sharks were open to trading the No. 2 overall selection. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said on the “32 Thoughts” podcast, published Sunday, that one of those teams was the Utah Mammoth.

Grier had mentioned in April that he was open to moving the pick for the right price. Utah held the No. 4 overall pick and pushed to move up to No. 2, but the two sides never reached an agreement. The Mammoth kept its top pic and took Moncton Wildcats center Caleb Desnoyers fourth overall.

“A few teams called about the pick, and we kind of went over some scenarios and what the offers were,” Grier said. “But we just felt that Michael was just too special a player for us to pass on. To have an opportunity to have him and Macklin and Will and (Eklund) and (Dickinson and Askarov) all these guys to kind of grow together, especially having the strength down the middle, we just thought it was too much of a special opportunity for us to pass up.”

Goalie signed

The Sharks have signed goalie Gabriel Carriere to a one-year, two-way contract. Carriere. 24, appeared in 22 games for the Barracuda and had a 10-9-3 record with two shutouts and an .894 save percentage.