The San Jose Sharks’ rebuild still has a long way to go

Tyler Yaremchuk was joined by Frank Seravalli to discuss the San Jose Sharks and where they stand in their rebuild on the latest episode of Daily Faceoff Live.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Let’s do our post mortem on the San Jose Sharks. Frank, when you look through this year it’s really hard to find any sort of victories for Sharks fans. The only one I can come up with is that the season’s almost over and you’re one more year through the rebuild. Is that fair or foul or were there maybe some little wins for the Sharks?

Frank Seravalli: Not many. I would say the only win for Sharks fans this year is that for the first time after the Hertl trade it feels like they finally have some sort of cohesive plan that they’ve begun to pair down some of these big contracts that are on their books. That is probably going to be it for a while because they don’t have any retained salary slots left and I think that also includes next year as well if I’m not mistaken.

I’d like to see them stockpile more picks and prospects. They should have some pretty good picks, the New Jersey pick should be pretty decent in the second round. We’ll see what happens with that top-10 protected pick this year that has worked out way better than they expected from the Karlsson trade.

But when you look at retained salary transaction slots all locked up for next year as well, you’re talking about some time in late summer 2025 is the first time the Sharks will be able to really engage. What happens with Couture and some other guys on the team, I know he needs to be healthy, but they need to begin tearing it down.

There’s lots of debate about that Hertl deal, there’s certainly some strong opinions from front offices around the league that felt like Mike Grier could have gotten a lot more for Hertl this summer and wouldn’t have had to retain had he been able to engage some other teams. I think the surprising nature of it really makes you wonder, at a time when Hertl was hurt, did you kind of hold him up for auction so to speak.

I know Hertl had some control in the process but certainly some fair questions to ask about how the Sharks have gone about their business. But I’d say the one win is that, after averaging a 28th place finish for the last five years, it’s been insanely slow to get to this point. The tough part is the rebuild is just beginning and it’s not really gone on it’s way, that’s really what’s tough.

You can watch the rest of the episode here: