What we’re hearing about the Sharks and the NHL Draft at the scouting combine

BUFFALO — The NHL Draft Combine is a week-long gathering of team executives, scouts, player agents and a little more than 100 of the top prospects in the class.

There are two standard reasons for everyone being here — teams get the chance to interview the players, and the prospects go through a series of medical and physical tests. But there are also other motives and reasons why it can be a fun place to be for a few days in early June, and it’s not just the nice late-spring weather or the chicken wings.

General managers meet with each other to lay the groundwork for trades later this month. They met with agents about prospective free agents. And everyone in and around Harborcenter has information to trade, or gossip and rumors to relay and debate.

There isn’t a lot of concrete intelligence that comes from this week. Here’s one thing I’m relatively certain about, after talking to a whole bunch of agents, NHL front-office members and players: What the San Jose Sharks are going to do at the No. 4 pick is a matter of great intrigue around the league. As of Saturday morning, anyone who tells you they know what the Sharks have decided to do with that selection is wrong or has bad information.

“The draft really starts at No. 3 with Columbus, but everyone wants to know what San Jose is up to,” said one NHL player agent who was granted anonymity to speak freely about his view of the Sharks’ direction. “Will they just take the center that’s left? Are they pulling the trigger on (Matvei) Michkov? What’s their plan? They’re a bit of a mystery.”

I spoke with four members of the San Jose front office, either formally or informally. Other members of The Athletic also chatted with various Sharks personnel. There’s not a lot of solid information to go on at this point, and the Sharks are quite OK with that.
The Sharks did formal interviews with around 75 players over the course of the week at Harborcenter. They also took each of the two of the top prospects in attendance that could be the No. 4 pick, Leo Carlsson and Will Smith, out to dinner.

There are still more meetings to come, but the final list they’ll work from in Nashville is not complete yet. In the meantime, here are some nuggets of information from the week in Buffalo.

Will Smith 

It’s pretty easy to deduce that Smith should be, at a minimum, the slight betting favorite to go No. 4 to the Sharks. Connor Bedard is going No. 1 to Chicago. Adam Fantilli is going No. 2 to Anaheim, and if he doesn’t, someone from Columbus will leap from table to table if needed to get to the central registry computer and officially make him a member of the Blue Jackets.

Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekäläinen said they will take a center, so if Fantilli is gone, that leaves Carlsson and Smith. It could be Smith, but Carlsson’s work at the world championships has led plenty of draft experts to conclude he’s the most likely pick for Columbus.

That would leave Smith and Michkov. The Sharks could take Carlsson if he’s still on the board. They could take Michkov, but given the risk involved and the lack of actionable information at this point, Smith’s place as the slight favorite is logical.

So … how did Smith’s dinner with the Sharks go?

“Great,” Smith said.

Smith was also asked twice Saturday about potentially flying to San Jose for a visit between now and the draft. There was a rumor circulating earlier in the week that he might be. His responses were “not that I’ve heard of” and “not that I know of” and then there was a third denial that he prompted.

There’s a difference between gossip from second and third parties and information from people connected to teams and players around this time of the year. Maybe Smith is just a really good poker player, but he was adamant that’s not something he knows anything about.

Some other nuggets about Smith:

– His older sister will be a senior at Boston College next year when he’s a freshman. They haven’t attended the same place since he was in elementary school.

– He’s like 99 percent sure he attended Game 7 of Bruins-Leafs in 2011, the epic third-period comeback that launched a Stanley Cup run for Boston.

– When asked how he got USA Hockey National Team Development Program linemate Gabe Perreault to join him (and linemate Ryan Leonard) at BC, he said, ‘I’m pretty persuasive.”

OK, if that’s the case, what was his personal sales pitch when teams like San Jose, Columbus and Anaheim interviewed him?

“Just be myself,” he said. “If they like the person that I am, and obviously the hockey player, then I think everything will work out.”

– Smith is already the top guy among the top four prospects who have been hanging out over the past week … at golf. He had the best score during a trip to TopGolf. Carlsson was second. Fantilli and Bedard finished off the pace.

Leo Carlsson

Carlsson, like Smith, went to dinner with both the Sharks and the Blue Jackets. He couldn’t recall the name of either restaurant, but he had a good steak both nights. He said there were six members of the Sharks’ front office at the dinner and he described it as a great experience.

One of the questions about Carlsson is whether he will be a center in the NHL, but it’s not a question to him. He said that is his position, and getting to play there for the national team at the worlds was “perfect” because NHL clubs had mostly only seen him on the wing the past two seasons.

In one such recent tournament, the 2022 world junior championship, Carlsson played on Filip Bystedt’s wing. Bystedt was San Jose’s first-round pick in the 2022 NHL draft.

“That was a good experience,” Carlsson said. “I think we think about hockey the same way. He played center and I was on the wing, but I think it worked out pretty good.”

Carlsson also might be a burgeoning sneakerhead. He had a nice pair of Nike kicks on after he was done working out at the combine, and said he’s got Jordans at home. He also enjoys playing basketball in his free time.

The timelines for Carlsson (and Smith) aren’t particularly clear right now. Carlsson said he feels like he might be ready for the NHL now, but after he’s drafted he’ll talk with the NHL team and make that decision. He did say he can see the positives in both going back to the SHL and trying to play in the NHL. As for maybe playing in the NHL, he seemed a bit hesitant about that but didn’t rule it out.

Matvei Michkov 

The third member of the group of players most likely to be selected by the Sharks at No. 4 is Matvei Michkov. He wasn’t in Buffalo this week for the NHL combine. None of the Russian players who are based at home were here.

No Russian-based prospects have made the trip to Buffalo since the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine began. It has also kept Michkov (plus other potential first-round picks Daniil But and Dmitri Simashev) from participating in any of the top international tournaments since the 2021 world junior championship was first aborted because of COVID-19 in December 2020.

“We can’t control the geopolitical situation,” NHL Central Scouting director Dan Marr said. “We talked to the agents for the players. It’s difficult to travel. It’s difficult to get visas and enter the U.S. We’re talking about nine players. We just said if you’re available and in the United States, they’re invited to attend the combine.”

The Sharks have not had any formal meetings with Michkov, outside of their local scout, Nikolai Ladygin, keeping tabs on him. Michkov is expected to attend the NHL draft in Nashville later this month. A member of the Sharks contingent in Buffalo indicated they would be interested in meeting with him before the draft.

Other notes 

– Jeffrey Viel could have been a restricted free agent this offseason, but a lack of NHL games this year pushed him into Group 6 unrestricted free agency. His agent, Allain Roy, said Viel will enter the market on July 1 and look for a new opportunity. Viel played 34 games for the Sharks in 2021-22, but only four this past season.

– Axel Sandin Pellikka is one of the top defensemen in this draft class. The Swedish defenseman might have the highest offensive upside of the group. The players he watches and models his game after the most are Cale Makar, Quinn Hughes and, as you might expect, Erik Karlsson.

“He was terrific (this past season)” Sandin Pellikka said. “Over 100 points as a defenseman in the NHL is a big accomplishment. I’ve been following his games all season. He’s also a right-shot defenseman, so I look up to him very much. It’s been a pleasure to watch him this season.”

– Michael Hrabal is the top-ranked goalie in this draft class, according to The Athletic’s Corey Pronman. He measured at nearly 6-foot-7 at the combine (6-6.75). He did not have a scheduled meeting with the Sharks at the combine, but a source close to Hrabal, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, said a representative from San Jose met with him on multiple occasions during the season.

That’s a good example of how some bits of information are more valuable than others this month. NHL teams draft players that they don’t meet with at the combine in Buffalo every year. Sometimes they just want to meet with other guys that they don’t have as much data on, or they don’t want other clubs to know of their interest in a particular player.

Who meets with who this week isn’t always that big of a deal. Who has dinner with what teams is a little more valuable.