Can the San Jose Sharks win the Stanley Cup in Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith’s third NHL season?
It sounds crazy, but that’s exactly what Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, Celebrini and Smith’s most frequent comparison as a duo, won their first championship.
Of course, I’m not going to put that kind of pressure on the couple.
But using the 2009-10 Blackhawks, Toews and Kane’s first title, and the 2008-09 Pittsburgh Penguins, Sidney Crosby’s fourth year and first Cup, as models, here’s how quickly the San Jose Sharks could change the situation… if almost everything goes well.
Are Celebrini and Smith the truth?
How quickly can Celebrini and Smith become top players?
For example, Toews and Kane were essentially point-per-game producers from the start.
In 2007-08, Toews’ and Kane’s rookie year, the 2006 third overall pick, Toews, scored 54 points in 64 games while taking on heavy 5-on-5, power-play and penalty-kill duties. Kane, the first overall pick in 2007, scored 72 points in 82 games, winning the Calder Trophy.
Chicago went from the fifth-worst team in 2006-07 with 71 points to missing the playoffs with 88 points.
Two years later, when the Hawks won the Cup, Toews finished fourth in Selke Trophy voting and Kane was a First Team All-Star winger.
It’s a high bar, but if the San Jose Sharks want to turn it around quickly, Celebrini and Smith will almost certainly need to become their top forwards almost immediately.
It’s okay if that doesn’t happen (2013 first overall pick Nathan MacKinnon, for example, took five seasons to become an elite center), but the faster the better.
air support
Of course, Toews and Kane joined a more talented Hawks team in 2007-08. Up front, Dave Bolland, Troy Brouwer, Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd, Patrick Sharp and Kris Versteeg would become key members of Chicago’s 2010 championship team.
Regarding the San Jose Sharks, who will support Celebrini and Smith?
For what it’s worth, in 2007-08, 2004 second-rounder Bolland and 2004 seventh-rounder Brouwer were still unknown quantities, as were, to a large extent, Ladd and Versteeg.
Ladd was a 2004 No. 4 pick by the Carolina Hurricanes that the Hawks acquired for young star Tuomo Ruutu, while Versteeg was a 2004 fifth-round pick by the Boston Bruins that they acquired for Brandon Bochenski.
Byfuglien, an eighth-round pick in 2003, scored 19 goals that season. Sharp, 26, was the veteran of this group, acquired by Chicago in 2005, along with Eric Meloche, for a 2006 third-round pick, and Matt Ellison.
How striking? Most of these key supporting forwards came to Chicago through shrewd drafts or trades, and only Ladd, a top pick, was acquired for first-round value in 2001, ninth overall, Ruutu.
Toews, Kane, Bolland, Sharp, Byfuglien, Versteeg and Ladd would represent seven of Chicago’s top nine forwards in their 2010 championship run.
The other two forwards? Marian Hossa and Tomas Kopecky.
Future Hall of Famer Hossa, of course, was a necessary ingredient to this championship and his triumphs in 2013 and 2015. The Blackhawks signed the 30-year-old, who is still playing at a world-class level, with a 12-year, $63.3 million contract in the summer of 2009.
For the San Jose Sharks, the point is that it’s not just about their potential No. 1 and 2 forwards, but whether they’re getting championship-caliber help.
Could high-level help come from William Eklund, Fabian Zetterlund, Quentin Musty, Filip Bystedt, David Edstrom, Thomas Bordeleau, Danil Gushchin, Kasper Halttunen, Collin Graf or somewhere else?
Eklund and Zetterlund are the only proven NHL players in this group of youngsters.
Can they add an elite forward to the Hossa who is still in his prime at some point? Do you like that the last name rhymes with “recital” in the summer of 2025?
Who is in D?
It will be difficult for the San Jose Sharks to match the Blackhawks’ championship defensive backbone.
In 2010, 26-year-old Duncan Keith won his first Norris Trophy, stalwart Brent Seabrook was just 24 and closing specialist Niklas Hjalmarsson was just 22.
At the moment, the Sharks only have one projected future top-four defenseman in their system, New Jersey Devils‘ 2020 first-round pick Shakir Mukhamadullin.
For what it’s worth, only one of Chicago’s trio was a first-round pick, Seabrook going 14th overall in 2003. Keith was a second-round pick in 2002 and Hjalmarsson was a fourth-round pick in 2005.
Rounding out Chicago’s top four in 2010 was another expensive UFA veteran acquisition, Brian Campbell, who signed an eight-year, $57.1 million contract in the summer of 2008.
If you want to equate Mukhamadullin with Seabrook, which is a bit of a stretch, neither Keith nor Hjalmarsson are to be found in the Sharks organization, at least at the moment. Of course, maybe a prospect like Mattias Havelid or Luca Cagnoni will surprise.
Here’s where the 2008-09 Cup-winning Penguins could provide the most hope: You don’t need an elite defensive corps to be a champion.
This was Crosby’s fourth season and Evgeni Malkin’s third, and they both scored 100 points, a sort of Connor McDavid-Leon Draisaitl of their era.
In addition to fellow youngsters Jordan Staal, Maxime Talbot and Tyler Kennedy, the rest of the top nine in the playoffs was comprised of veterans Bill Guerin, Chris Kunitz, Matt Cooke and Ruslan Fedotenko.
And in defense? The underrated Sergei Gonchar, 34, was his number one defenseman, primarily a tremendous power-play weapon. After Gonchar, defensive stalwarts Rob Scuderi, Brooks Orpik and Hal Gill completed their top four.
Scuderi, 30, was a fifth-round pick of the Pens in 1998; Orpik, 28, was drafted in the first round in 2000; and Gill, 33, was acquired at the 2008 trade deadline.
Kris Letang was on this team but he was only in his third season.
They weren’t Keith/Seabrook/Hjalmarsson at their best, by any means.
Of course, that’s probably why the 2009 Penguins took seven years until their next championship, while the Hawks dominated the first half of the decade.
But whether it’s Mukhamadullin, Mario Ferraro, their 14th pick in 2024, a trade or anywhere else, the Sharks have a long way to go before solidifying a championship-caliber defense.
Between the pipes?
Like now, Stanley Cup-winning goaltenders came from many places back then.
The 2009 Penguins and 2010 Blackhawks are studies in that.
Pittsburgh, of course, had the backing of 2003 first overall pick Marc-Andre Fleury.
Meanwhile, Chicago was led by a face familiar to San Jose Sharks fans, Antti Niemi, an undrafted free agent who was signed out of Finland in 2008. Niemi, 26, would surpass veteran Cristóbal Huet in 2009- 10 and would be a starter in the entire playoffs. contest.
So could Mackenzie Blackwood or Vitek Vanecek lead the Sharks to a championship? Or as crazy as it sounds, Georgi Romanov?
No NHL-level goalie can be counted out if the team is good enough around him.
As important as the goalkeeper position is, it is also easier to understand than the forward and defense positions.
So if the San Jose Sharks were to turn things around quickly, these dominoes will have to fall, roughly in this order: First, Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith have to live up to the hype. So can you give them enough support from the beginning and the end? This will likely be one or two elite players or more, along with deep depth players.
It is a difficult task, but if you are clear about number 1 (Celebrini) and number 2 (Smith), you can start dreaming big.
Keynote USA
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