Sheng Peng
Doug Wilson doesn’t sound like a GM who’s going anywhere.
The 2020-21 San Jose Sharks are going to miss the playoffs, and for just the third time in franchise history, they’re going to miss the post-season in consecutive years. But Wilson has a plan to put the Sharks are back in the playoffs next season, and it sounds like owner Hasso Plattner is on board.
Wilson held his end-of-the-season media availability this morning and touched on a wide spectrum of topics: What is he looking to add to the San Jose Sharks this summer? How much does he talk to Plattner? Is he considering buying any players out? Does he still believe that Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic can be high-impact defensemen?
This exit interview was lightly edited for clarity and length.
Doug Wilson, on what he’s looking to add to the San Jose Sharks this summer:
If you ask me the areas that we need to discuss and address, I still haven’t had my exit interviews with the players or with the coaches. But I think goaltending, we have to address. The 3C spot, certainly we have to look at and explore.
But we also think we’ve positioned ourselves during the expansion year to be able to identify and address and add the pieces that we think we need going forward.
Wilson, on what makes him confident that this team doesn’t need a rebuild:
Take a look at the pieces on our team and the ages of those guys. We’ve gone from being the 23rd-youngest team to the fifth-youngest team in the league. Why do we use the term reset? There’s teams that have gone through this, where your your core guys have to be your best players. There’s no doubt.
But if you look at our guys, Logan’s 32 — 32 for a guy that takes care of himself is often the prime of his career. Erik Karlsson is only 30. People forget that Evander Kane is 29. Timo Meier is 24. Tommy Hertl is 27. You’ve got young guys, the Ferraros, the Knyzhovs, you’ve got people coming.
We came into this year, having had our guys not play for 10-and-a-half months, not have a training camp.
So I had to be very patient [with evaluations] during a pandemic year where, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think anybody’s truly equipped to deal with a pandemic.
Yes, we have to add some pieces. I would ask you the question, if at the Trade Deadline, for example, if I had added a goalie and a 3C, a quality 3C, would we have made the playoffs this year?
We probably would have, but the one thing that I wouldn’t do is I wouldn’t move our first-round pick and I wouldn’t move one of our top young players. So the commitment [is] to our reset.
You know, we played some pretty good hockey at times this year. I think [early April, we were actually a point out of the playoffs]. But what happened, I think our guys were running on empty. Logan Couture, Tommy Hertl, not having a 3C that probably could have diminished their minutes and their moments probably was a reality of our commitment.
If we had, and I hate to say it, higher-end goaltending, quality goaltending, where would we have been? And you take a look at other teams around the league that added certain pieces — we chose this year not to add those pieces because I needed to replenish. And when I say the importance of replenishing, when you look back on how we acquired Jumbo or Erik Karlsson or Brent Burns or Evander Kane, you have to have assets and ingredients.
So here it is, in hindsight, I guess if you’re ever going to reset and replenish, it’s probably best to do it during a pandemic year. You don’t want to be giving up your younger players or your picks for short-term health.
I think this hockey team has some really good core pieces. I really do. Do we need to add some things? Absolutely. Some of our younger players need to step up and take the opportunity.
So every team has to deal with a flat cap. Some teams are in a position to add pieces — like we are — other teams are going to have to figure out ways to be able to keep their pieces. That’s the reality of this league right now.
Wilson, on if owner Hasso Plattner is on board with the “reset”:
I talk to him all the time. My job is to do what’s right for the organization.
He’s always been aware of the plan right from the start. We have complete clarity, when we talked about what we were going to do. We started last summer, actually, prior to the Draft, where we decided to keep our nine picks. We knew that basically the Thornton and Marleau era was winding down. Every team has had to go through some type of reset, rebuild, whatever — you make your choices on how you want to do it. So it came easy when we got to the Trade Deadline this year. And I could have gone and made a trade and moved our first-round pick and moved one of our top young players and addressed a couple of these needs, and probably got us into the playoffs. But would that have been the right thing to do in the middle of a reset/replenish? We don’t think so.
And in hindsight, sitting where we are right now, we feel comfortable that we committed and stayed to that plan. And that’s something that we have talked about as an organization, we never reduce the ability for our guys to compete. But this was a unique year, pandemic, reset, replenish, you can’t waver from those things.
If we’re sitting here today and I don’t have our first-round pick and I don’t have one of our top young prospects, and it was just done to sneak into the playoffs, we don’t think that was the right approach.
The other thing too, which we always factor into our plan was it’s an expansion year. And the beauty of being prepared for expansion, which we are just like last time — we lost David Schlemko, which we were comfortable doing — we’re prepared because we played all these young players that don’t need to be protected for expansion. So we are in a really good position to get through expansion, not only get through it, but also use it as an opportunity to potentially add some players that other teams might have to make available. And I go back to when you acquire people, you got to have young players, draft picks, and cap space. We have those three things that I think will enable us to be able to add to this team between now and October.
Wilson, on why he thinks Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic can still be high-impact defensemen:
Brent Burns is genetically gifted. I still think he is a top-end player. I think he played a balanced game this year.
I have no concerns with Brent Burns. His love for the game, how he takes care of himself, he can still be a high-end player.
Erik is a really talented player. He’s still one of the top defenseman, at 30 years of age, he’s the same age as Josi, Hedman, and Pietrangelo. He’s a year younger than Doughty.
I think having a [training] normal cycle [will help him]. I’m not saying it’s any different for Erik than it is for anybody else, but I think he has settled in [to San Jose].
Marc-Edouard, in the last little while, I think has got back on top of his game. Take a look how he played against Colorado [at the end of the season], for example. Some players got out of their training cycles and we weren’t able to come back and have guys here in camp. There’s things we need to alter and change and address. He was 33, turned 34. He knows, and we discussed this — there are some things that he needs to do in the off-season, training-wise, to get to where he needs to get to.
The guys you’re talked about are still very good hockey players with some really good hockey ahead of them. We feel comfortable, as they do, that we add the pieces that we need to our team, it takes some pressure points off.
For example, if I add a 3C, it takes a pressure point off Logan and Tommy.
Our goaltending is where we need it to be, it takes pressure points off other people.
We think this can be a good hockey team.
Wilson, on Martin Jones and the future of San Jose Sharks goaltending:
Our goaltending has to be better.
I’m going to sit with Nabby and with our staff because I haven’t done that yet. I’ll be doing that in the next little while.
We feel that the young guys certainly have made some really good progress. We like where they’re at. I will say this on goaltending: We will explore all avenues to address goaltending. We know that it’s important.
But I do want to get the input from Nabby and our staff. But we also think this being an expansion year, that there will be a pool of goaltenders available when we decide to add one.
Wilson, on if he’s considering buying any of his players out:
Again, I’ll put it to you this way. We’re in a position to be able to do and explore all options of things. What we decide to do will be made with the proper thought process.
We are in the mix. I think some of you might have been surprised that we had as much cap space as we did at the Trade Deadline. We have the ability to be in conversations with teams that could make people available, whether it be Seattle or other teams that may be in a different expansion position than we are. So we’ve thought this through: We will explore all avenues to improve this hockey team.
I’ve shared two of the areas that we’re going to look at.
Wilson, on how adding a 3C and improving goaltending will put his star players in a better position to succeed:
How you use them, zone starts, minutes, and things like that, when you add players and you take pressure points. So if your goaltending is better, you might not have to use guys in all situations as many minutes as you do, because you potentially could be in a better position that game.
Let’s cut through it. If you want to be successful in this league, it comes down to goal differential. So what we really need is to give up half a goal less every game and score half a goal more, that gets you in the range of not having that fine line. And that’s why addressing the goaltending, addressing the 3C, having people in proper roles, I think it allows your best players to be your best players, not run out of gas.
That’s part of one of the things that we need to do, we’ve got to build a really good third line, we got to have a good fourth line. We think we have some young players, certainly that can evolve into those roles.
But we’ll add things that we need between now and September and October to put the pieces of the puzzle together. We’re not as far away as people think. We’re not.