So does winning the draft lottery and using the No. 1 overall selection next month on center Macklin Celebrini affect the San Jose Sharks’ rebuild?
The short answer? Maybe a little bit.
General manager Mike Grier confirmed, for all intents and purposes, that he’ll take Celebrini with the No. 1 overall selection at the NHL Draft next month in Las Vegas. However, he continued to stress that he’s not interested in skipping steps when assembling a team that can compete for the long term.
It’s just that he’ll soon have a player who can help the Sharks get to that point a bit quicker than some others in this year’s draft would have.
“We’ll probably try and stay the same,” Grier said of the rebuild on the Sharks Audio Network just a few minutes after the draft lottery concluded. “But we also have to be cognizant of surrounding Macklin with good veterans and people he can play with and make plays with. It’s a little bit of a juggling act.
“But if you look at it maybe a couple years down the road, it probably speeds things up a little bit if he becomes the player we all think he can be. So, it’s exciting to see.”
Here are some other notable questions after one of the bigger days in recent Sharks franchise history, as they earned the right to select “a foundational franchise player,” in Celebrini, as TSN director of scouting Craig Button said recently.
WILL WILLIAM SMITH TURN PRO NOW?: Grier said last month that he feels that Smith, who led NCAA Division I in scoring as a freshman with 71 points in 41 games for Boston College, is ready to turn pro now. Grier added that he’ll continue talking to the 18-year-old center and his representative about the best move going forward.
What Smith wants, though, is unclear. Certainly, the thought of playing the game you love while also drawing a nice paycheck has to be enticing to some degree, as is, in all likelihood, the idea of having a talent like Celebrini as a teammate as soon as this fall.
“You want to start building your team at the core with foundational pieces? You’ve got Will Smith and you’ve got Macklin Celebrini,” Button said on TSN on Tuesday night. “That’s a tremendous one-two, two-one punch down the middle.”
But one of Smith’s teammates, Ryan Leonard, announced that he will return to Boston College for his sophomore year. Could the allure of trying to win an NCAA title with his buddies — after losing in the national championship game last month — be just as powerful?
Smith is at the IIHF World Championships right now, getting an opportunity to play with NHL veterans, including Sharks forward Luke Kunin. On Tuesday, Smith had a goal and an assist in Team USA’s 6-2 pre-tournament win over Slovakia in Bratislava.
“A good start for him over there,” Grier said.
We’ll see how the tournament goes — and what happens after.
THE COACHING SEARCH: Grier said the search for a new coach remains in its early stages after David Quinn was fired as the team’s coach on April 24. Grier said he’s already spoken to several individuals about the position.
Does winning the lottery increase the pool of candidates, perhaps raising the interest of some coaches who might not otherwise want to be a part of a long rebuild, Grier was asked?
“That’s something I can’t really answer. You’d have to talk to the individual coaches themselves about that,” Grier said. “The coaches we have talked to and the ones we plan to talk to have all been excited about the possibility of coaching the Sharks. They see the young players coming in and some of the veterans we have here, so I think there’s been excitement about the job.”
FREE AGENT TALK: The possibility of playing with Celebrini and even Smith could help Grier sell free agents on joining the Sharks as they continue through the rebuild process.
There’s been instances of that with No. 1 picks in the past, particularly in Edmonton where free agents are attracted to the idea of playing with Connor McDavid. That could also happen in Chicago with players wanting to be on the same team as superstar-in-waiting Connor Bedard.
Celebrini’s not on the same level as McDavid, and might not put up as many points as Bedard in his career. But if San Jose is considered a good place to play by players and agents alike, with some young guys in need of some veteran leadership with a chance at winning long-term, then Celebrini could have a similar effect.
The Sharks will certainly have cap space to play with this summer and the next two years.
“I would imagine it’ll help attract some veteran players to have a chance to play with someone like Macklin and help him grow his game and things like that,” Grier said. “So for veteran players or offensive players, it probably would help us look a little bit more attractive.”