The San Jose Sharks will no doubt have one pick inside the top 10 at this year’s NHL Draft in Las Vegas.
Depending on what the Pittsburgh Penguins and general manager Kyle Dubas decide, the Sharks might have a second.
The rebuilding Sharks enter their game with the Penguins on Thursday in last place in the NHL’s overall standings. If they remain in that spot, they will have a 25.5 percent chance of winning the draft lottery and selecting No. 1 overall for the first time in team history.
But the Sharks are also interested in where the Penguins, in 25th place in the league’s overall standings before Wednesday’s games, finish the season.
If Pittsburgh, after the lottery, is 11th or worse in the draft order, its first-round pick will automatically go to San Jose as a condition of last summer’s Erik Karlsson trade. But Dubas could still elect to send that pick to counterpart Mike Grier even if it is in the latter half of the draft order’s top 10.
That’s because if the Penguins do not send their first-rounder to the Sharks this year, they will have to send their 2025 first-round pick instead. And if this season represents the start of Pittsburgh’s downward spiral, after so many years of excellence, Dubas may want to hold onto his first-rounder next year.
If the season ended today and the Penguins (28-27-9) didn’t move up or down in the lottery, they would have the eighth overall pick.
The Penguins, Grier said, have 24 hours after the draft lottery concludes to make that decision. He added that he doesn’t have a preference.
“We’ll take whatever comes our way,” Grier said. “Kyle’s obviously got to make whatever decision he thinks is best for the Penguins.”
The Sharks (16-41-7) were officially eliminated from playoff contention Tuesday night, as hours after San Jose lost 3-2 to the Philadelphia Flyers, the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Seattle Kraken. Even if the Sharks win all their 18 remaining games, they cannot catch Vegas or any other team presently in a playoff spot.
The Sharks didn’t think they would have only 16 wins at this point, but they were also aware that this wasn’t a playoff-contending year. Grier is optimistic, though, that they can at least take a small step forward next season.
Winning the draft lottery and selecting center Macklin Celebrini – easily the best player available in this year’s draft – would aid in that endeavor.
Celebrini, 17, entered this week with 29 goals and 54 points in 32 games, giving him an NCAA Division I-leading 1.69 points per game. Listed at 6-foot and 190 pounds, Celebrini might be the only player in this year’s draft capable of playing in the NHL next season.
“He’s a guy you can build around for a number of reasons,” Sportsnet analyst Sam Cosentino said of Celebrini, who he had as a clear No. 1 in his latest draft rankings. “Character, effort, smarts, production, skill. He is the perfect marriage of will and skill for me.”
Should the Sharks get the Penguins’ first-round pick this year, there should be several quality players available, especially defensemen, at the 8-12 range.
Cosentino has defensemen Zeev Buium and Zayne Parekh ranked eighth and ninth, respectively, should the Penguins fall into one of those spots in the draft and move the pick to the Sharks. Parekh has drawn comparisons to a young Karlsson with his scoring and playmaking ability.
If the Sharks opted to go with a forward with that Penguins pick, centers Cayden Lindstrom, and Tij Iginla could both still be on the board.
Lindstrom, ranked the third-best North American skater by Central Scouting, is a manchild with Medicine Hat of the WHL at 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds. Iginla, son of Hockey Hall of Famer Jarome Iginla, is 5-11 and 186 pounds, but is a gifted scorer with 45 goals and 78 points in 59 games with the Kelowna Rockets of the WHL before Wednesday.
“You’re going to get a really dynamite player in that spot, and there’s a good chance that there will be a defenseman in there,” Cosentino said. “So if the stars align perfectly, (the Sharks) win the lottery, they take Celebrini and they’ve got their forward. Now they’re picking 11th, and now you get a young defenseman.
“That would be the ideal blueprint to really speed up the process. Because you’ll probably get a top-pairing defenseman there, and you’re going to get the franchise-changing Celebrini.”