It may not be a good thing, that may mean SJ is very depleted

But hope.....

More on the side of impressing than depletion. (Not gunning for you so don’t take the long comment as a slight against yah).

Sasha for example had some good praise come his way (as well as merkley) but they both got sent to the AHL because it’s better for them. The team has looked alright without them and it’ll allow them to get some AHL time before we “NEED” them if we’re struggling.

Ferraro legitimately has been “head turning” according to the ones closer to the team as he’s not “gotten a top 4 role” but earned it by making it without question he should play there; and honestly 99% of SJS people believe Vlasic shouldn’t even be on the top pair and that Ferraro should be there.

Leonard is about the same, the plan was for Donato to get top6 time but Leonard earned it; not the exact same as Ferraro level of impressing but I would say close too.

Vlasic in the top4 is depletion as well as Gregor/ Kellman as the 3C 4C (not saying Gregor has played bad [he’s actually been solid] or Kellman but those are moves out of nothing better). Handemark didn’t take a starting role and not much else to chose from (other than Sasha but he’s already been explained that he’ll likely start in the A).

Everything here is spot on.

If you watched Mario’s YT you know he worked his butt off all offseason and it’s showing. He is quickly facing off EK65 and Timo as my favorite shark. Ferraro has earned every bit of time he is gonna get.

As for Johnny, the guy was a 6th round pick. He is had to work for everything and even last year in the NCAA he put up 27 goals in 33 games. He ain’t no slouch. And if you think about his skill and speed with Hertl and EK9s power and size puts a good line on paper.

Noah Gregor has looked good in camp. You can see he put on some mussel this offseason as he is way stronger on the puck. Didn’t lose that speed either which is awesome. My only question is how can he adjust to the center role.

Good call by you. Just hope this isn't history repeating itself like with Bergmann/Yurtaykin who were "impressive in camp" but then couldn't actually translate their games to the NHL. They've been invisible since then possible due to the premature call up. Hope this isn't the same fate for Leonard, but as a 6th rounder making the jump from NCAA (at ~1.1 PPG) to NHL it's gonna be very tough imo. Plus I know John is a good player, but he's no Newhook/other high-caliber prospect. For that reason I'm not sure I see a lot of longevity with Leonard in the NHL for now at least.

Who knows though I hope I'm proven wrong.

I think two things can be true - 1: The forward corps is stronger both in talent and in depth than last year and 2: there is still enough deficiency in the roster where it's very probable they are DOA anyway (barring extraneous COVID circumstances which are always possible).

The additions of Donato, Leonard, and Ferraro are good and will help the team. However, their division just got significantly harder- instead of having one top-5 team in Vegas and then everyone else, you have two top-5 teams in Vegas and Colorado, a top-10 team in St. Louis, and Minnesota who is a lot better than people remember, lost a lot of games last year to goaltending, and made some decent improvements this year including adding Kaprizov whose most recent KHL numbers were comparable to Panarin's last years in Russia. It's also worth mentioning that even though your forward corps improved, the quality of defense in the division is better- even pseudo-contenders like the Oilers or the Canucks rely specifically on their offense and the Sharks could have exploited the defensive deficiencies of those teams...they'll have a harder time doing that against the four teams I just mentioned, improved or not. Also, you're only playing those teams, a gagillion times.

But even if that wasn't true, the sharks are still playing either Vlasic or Simek in their top four which is a recipe for not good things, and while I understand you can't just open a trapdoor under Martin Jones, maybe replacing Dell with the goalie that caused everyone to think Minnesota is really bad last year isn't exactly an improvement. And if your goaltending sucks, it really doesn't matter what the rest of your team looks like.

Honestly if you're going to tank, this isn't a bad year to do it. No fans, short season, losing a bunch of money anyway. You got the first rounder, just be bad and go for Powers or that other guy.

They might end up being bad. We have no clue. Not trying to say he is Pavs 2.0 but both being 6th round picks. In there final years in the NCAA Pavs put up 1.3 points per game while Johnny put up 1.2. Just putting that out there

I mean...we have SOME clue. I don't think the Sharks are projected to make the playoffs in a single model this year. This isn't a very fluid division like the North is.

I would say there's little to no correlation to those things. Nolan Stevens also was just over a point per game in the NCAA his last year and he was undrafted and is barely even a prospect for the Blues. On the other hand Caufield was a PPG this past year he was drafted #15 overall. Success in college hockey is famously not a barometer for success at the NHL level. Some guys do it and some guys don't.