2022 Sharks and NHL Offseason

Maybe don’t hire a guy two days before the biggest day (arguably) of the year. Seems wise to me but I’m just a guy.

Agreed this was on Hasso. Grier was out there and they could have hired him much earlier. Waiting until this week to hire him set the team back another year or two at least

This.

I would like the so called media ask Mike Grier some very simple and fair questions.
#1 Do you think you are a postseason team next season? If so why? If not when?
Do you think the team needs a rebuild? If not why if so how?

I get the current situation is not his fault but if you are going to take the job you should be able to answer these questions.

Pain for Shane was a no-go. Now it is time to suck hard for Bedard!

That one won’t slip to number 4. Every point is gonna sting next season!

The new general manager of the San Jose Sharks takes over a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in three seasons, had the third-weakest offense last season (2.57 goals per game), and has big dollars and term tied up in high-mileage veterans such as Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, who make a combined $26.5 million per year through 2025.

Oh, and there’s the matter of running the draft, hiring a new coaching staff, and filling out the front office, as the offseason is well underway.

It’s fair to say Mike Grier had a bit of work to do in his first couple weeks on the job. It’s also accurate to say he was qualified to do it.

Grier, 47, became the first Black GM in NHL history when hired this past week. It is a pioneering designation he took in stride, and a role he had been training for, in his estimation, since he “was about 10 years old.”

The son of Bobby Grier, the former Patriots personnel director, and younger brother of Miami Dolphins GM Chris Grier, Mike Grier has traveled a path from Holliston and St. Sebastian’s, to Boston University, to a 14-year career as an NHL player that always seemed destined for hockey management. It didn’t matter that no one who looked like him had filled his new role before.

“I lean on them quite a bit,” Grier said of his father, who now consults for the Dolphins, and brother, who has been GM in Miami since 2016. “There’s a wealth of knowledge there with those two. As soon as I told my dad about the job, he went right into the mode of giving me tips and advice.

“Growing up, we talked about the challenges of building rosters, and things like that. At dinner … I’d want to talk football, they’d want to talk hockey.”

The Grier brothers would have rather been playing, but management was never uncool.

“No, we enjoyed it just because we got to be around my dad so much and saw how hard he worked and the passion he had for it,” Mike Grier said. “We kind of got a peek behind the curtain of how you build a team, what works and what doesn’t work, the importance of culture.”

The latter element, the professionalism and knack for winning, eventually became one of the top lines on Grier’s résumé.

As a player, he was a fan favorite who helped BU to the NCAA title in 1995. He made the playoffs in 11 of his NHL seasons as a tough, responsible, hard-checking, penalty-killing forward.

“Coaches love guys who don’t make mistakes,” former BU coach Jack Parker once said. “And he doesn’t make mistakes.”

Initially considered by Parker — and many NHL scouts and front offices — to be too bulky and slow to crack a college or pro lineup, Grier trimmed down as a BU freshman (thanks to some hard hours with trainer Mike Boyle) and became a reliable right winger.

He was shocked, though, when Parker told him to sit out his first few games.

“I was a pretty good player, and being told I wasn’t going to play that much, that never happened to me in my life,” Grier recalled. “The lesson there is there’s no easy way. The only thing to do was to work harder, practice harder. I was just determined to win my spot back in the lineup and not let anyone take it away.”

One of his roles while riding the bench was showing high school recruits around campus. One of those prospects, Chris Drury, later became GM of the Rangers. After Grier’s stint as an assistant coach with the Devils (2018-20), Drury brought him on as a hockey operations adviser in 2021, and stumped for his candidacy in San Jose.

That freshman year also saw Grier, drafted 219th overall by the Blues in 1993, traded to Edmonton (with goalie Curtis Joseph) for a pair of first-round picks. In 1996, Grier went straight from BU to the Oilers’ lineup. He spent six seasons in Edmonton, where he had a pair of 20-goal seasons and scored a career-high 44 points in 1999.

Traded from the Oilers to the Capitals (where he played for rookie coach Bruce Cassidy from 2002-03), Grier was dealt to Buffalo at the 2004 trade deadline, and helped the post-lockout Sabres go on a run. Grier put up a 3-5–8 line in 18 playoff games as they reached the 2006 Eastern Conference finals. Grier wound down his career in San Jose (2006-09) before finishing with a pair of years in Buffalo. He retired in 2011, months after skating in his 1,000th game.

All in all, a solid run at the highest level: 162 goals and 383 points in 1,060 games.

“He is a great, great human being, first and foremost,” said Bruins GM Don Sweeney, who played against Grier and has crossed paths with him at local rinks for years. “He’s a real soft-spoken guy but played the game hard, was smart, cerebral. It’s such an interesting family dynamic that he’s able to tap into that none of us certainly can utilize. But I’m really, really proud of the decision San Jose made in Mike getting the opportunity. I think it speaks volumes for where the game is going.”

I liked Grier as a player and he may end up being the greatest GM ever…but he was hired for one reason only…and it wasn’t his hockey IQ. Hope it works out for both him and the Sharks.

Is Mario staying?

Fire Tim Burke and Joe Will and everyone else now, fresh page

Pashelka-


Sharks issue qualifying offers to Sasha Chmelevski, Mario Ferraro, Jonah Gadjovich, Noah Gregor, Kaapo Kahkonen & Luke Kunin.



Not receiving QO's were Joachim Blichfeld, Jonathan Dahlen, Zach Gallant, Jake McGrew, Nicolas Meloche, Antoine Morand, Brinson Pasichnuk, Z. Sawchenko

Has this org successfully developed any player in the last few years?