Category: San Jose Sharks

Alex Wennberg Is Ambivalent About Staying in San Jose, At Best

One of my biggest frustrations with living in the world is how so many people cannot communicate basic things accurately, and also cannot decipher plain language directed their way. Like, a customer of my business placed an order on New Year’s Eve. We had provided a quote to provide three things, with prices for each clearly listed. The big item was about $3,500, and the other two were $750 and $200. The customer expressed shock and dismay that the total for all three things wasn’t $3,500, which is what she called up expecting to pay for our work. And so I was put in the position, as I am over and over for different reasons, of having to try to discuss the issue without saying things like “I don’t know how it’s my problem that you’re this stupid.”

Along these lines, I’ve now been presented twice by the allegedly literate journalists at San Jose Hockey Now with the information that Alex Wennberg wants to sign an extension and remain in San Jose after this year.

From a write-up of a media availability of his before the season:

On whether the pending UFA would like to stay in San Jose…

We’ll see how it goes. But so far, I’ve been here one year, and I’ve really had a great time here, great organization, everyone around here. I really enjoyed it, family as well. So we’ll see how it goes. But at the end of the day, I got brought in here to [bring] leadership, to be a guy who shows being a role model for the younger guys. I got this year left, so I’m going to give it my all. And I mean, what happens, happens. But my focus is on this year, and what I can do right now.

The headline of that piece began “Wennberg Wants to Stay in San Jose”. He very clearly did not say that and probably even took great care not to say that while having some nice words about the organization.

Now Wennberg has been named to the Swedish Olympic team and SJHN put out a write-up headlined “Wennberg Happy To Make Team Sweden, Wants To Sign Extension With Sharks”

On whether he, pending UFA, wants to return to the San Jose Sharks…

I love it here. Right now it’s a lot of things going on and all that, so all I can do is to think about hockey, and then we’re going to see what happens. I have an agent to help with that and whatever is going to happen. But I really love the place here. San Jose as a city, but the team as well, the guys. I just have good things to say, and then we’ll see what happens.

I’m sorry but what the fuck?! He was a bit more effusive in his praise of life in San Jose and the organization, but clearly made no particular affirmative comment that he wants to sign an extension and keep playing here.

I feel like Sharks fans are more prone to this sort of thing than other fanbases, but a large contingent of them have now decided that Wennberg is a critical piece of the team who must be retained or all the good vibes building go away. Just like they said about Mikael Granlund last season. Not surprisingly, they have learned nothing.

I can take or leave Wennberg. The only reason I think there is even a chance now that he is on the team until the end of the season is because the team finds itself legitimately in the playoff hunt. This was definitely not expected by the team. There is no doubt that they paid this guy, who now has 829 games played and a mere 108 goals in his career, what they paid him because they were also paying for the draft capital they would get back trading him before this season’s deadline.

But he’s just a guy. There is no reason that it has to be Alex Wennberg doing what Alex Wennberg would do next season as a 3C. There are a lot of ways to get that.

One thing that’s certain is Wennberg is not locked into wanting to stay. Either because he has his own preferences because of family or whatever, to play in a different part of the country, or maybe he’s received signals already from the team that it’s not in their plans. Whatever. Don’t write headlines saying he wants to stay when he takes care not to say that! What is wrong with you? And the world?

Igor Chernyshov Accelerates the Sharks’ Timeline

The San Jose Sharks began this season with another long losing streak, but since then really turned it around and have spent considerable time now occupying a wild card position in the standings. Despite this, and given that nearly everyone behind them in the standings has been only a few points back, at most, I wasn’t entertaining much thought of the team actually making the playoffs. I thought the team wasn’t good enough to hold up over the full season, and also that they would likely fall off at the end of the year. Macklin Celebrini was tired at the end of last season, and this year’s schedule is more condensed because of the Olympics, and it’s been clear for a while that he wasn’t getting a break during those Olympics.

However, when Will Smith was injured in Pittsburgh, that gave the team a reason to call up a player who could produce offensively, Igor Chernyshov. Chernyshov was having a very nice season for the AHL Barracuda, but now it looks like he was also holding something back while he worked on his game, or he just needed NHL players, and Celebrini in particular, to really take off.

Chernyshov has been one of my guys in the team’s pipeline. I was ecstatic they could get him in the draft, and then even more pleased that he came over right away to North America to get started (shoulder injury that delayed his start with Saginaw last year notwithstanding).

Having said that, I have not been yearning for his call-up because I expected he was ready to perform like he has. I thought his curve would be flatter. That maybe he comes up the last quarter of this season to get some experience to hopefully become a useful but not spectacular even yet player next season.

But now this is happening and now Macklin Celebrini has what he needs to turn the Sharks into a contender a lot faster than people have been expecting. Rebuilds don’t take long when you have some supporting cast around a player like Celebrini. The Penguins were a very good team in Sidney Crosby’s second season, when Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal joined up. It didn’t require 3-4 years for those guys to get experience before the team took major steps forward, it happened right away. The Penguins lost in the Stanley Cup Finals in Crosby’s third season and won it the next.

It helped the Penguins that Malkin and Staal were centers, while Chernyshov and Will Smith are wingers (yes I think Smith is purely an NHL winger). But the Sharks have those two, and while he is being unnecessarily babied this year, Michael Misa to fill another center position with an elite player. Yaroslav Askarov also fits in nicely as a Marc-Andre Fleury comp.

With Chernyshov in the lineup and a healthy Smith back, I think the Sharks are now more likely than not to make the playoffs this season.

Next season could get crazy. A lot of that depends on Mike Grier, who I have complete confidence in. I think he’s been incredible in his role so far, and built a serious front office around him as well. But he’s pretty deliberate, and I wonder if he will move the plan forward for the team this offseason with some inspired additions, rather than the expert bin-shopping he did last offseason. The defense obviously needs some boosting. The assets are there to acquire a real nice player or two to get this thing into contention mode right away, and not have to wait for guys in the system to develop. Those are now chips to get good tomorrow.