said about No. 2 pick<\/a>, winger Ivar Stenberg. Raymond is a point-per-game winger for the Detroit Red Wings.<\/p>\n\u201cI had Verhoeff as the best [defenseman] in the draft,\u201d the scout said about No. 9 pick Keaton Verhoeff.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just one of the best players in the draft, period,\u201d the scout said about No. 21 pick, smaller defenseman Ryan Lin.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goalie group with Ryan Miller really believes in Brady, and really likes the upside and potential,\u201d Sharks director of amateur scouting Chris Morehouse said about No. 127 pick, 6-foot-5 goaltender Brady Knowling. \u201cThe skating, the quick feet, the athleticism, those are all things that profile really well at the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a big kid, we like his development path,\u201d Morehouse said about No. 174 pick, 6-foot-4 center Jake Gustafson, also the son of SAP Center vice president Jon Gustafson. \u201cHe\u2019s going to fill out his frame, he\u2019s a good athlete, and on top of that, he\u2019s a fantastic kid\u2026we liked the upside.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s athleticism there, untapped,\u201d Morehouse said about No. 201 pick, 7-foot-1 defenseman Alexander Karmanov, the tallest player ever drafted, \u201cRaw project\u2026we just like the potential that could be here\u2026it\u2019s going to be a long-term project, but kid\u2019s a great kid, he wants to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides expected-to-be NHL-ready winger Stenberg, however, all this doesn\u2019t help the Sharks today. And Stenberg\u2019s addition, theoretically, is canceled out, at least in the short-term, by the subtraction of winger William Eklund for the No. 9 pick.<\/p>\n
So how will Grier address the San Jose Sharks\u2019 needs today, up front and on defense? The goaltending appears set, between young Yaroslav Askarov and veteran Alex Nedeljkovic.<\/p>\n
Here are some ideas, a few days before the beginning of free agency on Jul. 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO \u2014 And on the second day of the draft, Mike Grier rested. That\u2019s just a joke \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":899698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[42],"tags":[305383,27074,44264,44265,364396,364397,28407,115992,311267,364398,28405,291,347347,63473,318858,318859,35842,1322,30241,316676,206301,364399,62296,364400,251433,236367,364401,21393,171018,44269,224226,12961,28400,4244,106034,293,364402,162693,234376,35243,347353,139866,30247,1328,35846,62,64481,44272,67,132,68,364403,5956,44273,44274,260092,145823],"class_list":["post-899697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-2026-draft","tag-adam-gaudette","tag-alex-nedeljkovic","tag-alex-wennberg","tag-alexander-karmanov","tag-alexander-nikishin","tag-anthony-mantha","tag-barclay-goodrow","tag-bo-byram","tag-brady-knowling","tag-brock-boeser","tag-chicago-blackhawks","tag-chris-morehouse","tag-collin-graf","tag-darnell-nurse","tag-darren-raddysh","tag-dmitry-orlov","tag-featured","tag-igor-chernyshov","tag-ivar-stenberg","tag-jacob-trouba","tag-jake-gustafson","tag-jason-robertson","tag-john-carlsson","tag-keaton-verhoeff","tag-kiefer-sherwood","tag-kirill-marchenko","tag-macklin-celebrini","tag-mason-lohrei","tag-mason-marchment","tag-michael-kesselring","tag-michael-misa","tag-mike-grier","tag-mitch-marner","tag-morgan-rielly","tag-nhl","tag-nikolai-ehlers","tag-owen-tippett","tag-rasmus-andersson","tag-rickard-rakell","tag-ryan-lin","tag-ryan-shea","tag-sam-dickinson","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-shakir-mukhamadullin","tag-sports","tag-ty-dellandrea","tag-tyler-toffoli","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-vinny-desharnais","tag-will-smith","tag-william-eklund","tag-yaroslav-askarov","tag-zach-werenski","tag-zack-ostapchuk"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}