Sheng Peng
The San Jose Sharks director of amateur scouting doesn’t watch the draft lottery.
“I actually haven’t watched one to date with the Sharks,” Chris Morehouse, with the Sharks since 2023, said at the Combine. “When it comes to stuff like that, where it’s completely out of my control — I’m fine once the balls work, and I can actually have an input in what goes on.”
So what was he doing when the Sharks jumped up to the No. 2 pick in the 2026 Draft last month?
“Hitting balls into my golf simulator in the garage, I figured nothing was really gonna happen, but then, all of a sudden, my wife came [in] screaming,” he laughed.
How about 2024, the biggest draft lottery in franchise history, which yielded franchise star Macklin Celebrini at No. 1?
“I was at a Little League baseball game. That was definitely one I was not gonna watch,” Morehouse recalled, “but then I remember once I got the text that we [won], I pulled my youngest off the field.”
Who texted him first?
Once again, it was wife Ashley.
“She’s on it. I gotta look back, I think her text was, ‘We got him,’ so that was pretty cool.”
San Jose Hockey Now caught up with Morehouse at the Combine recently, and course, the San Jose Sharks director of amateur scouting had his best poker face on, when it came to the team’s No. 2 pick.
But he had interesting things to say about topics related to now-Stanley Cup winner Carolina Hurricanes, including how a Combine interview revealed a lot about a current Canes defenseman and the small versus size Stanley Cup Final narrative between Carolina and the Vegas Golden Knights. He also discussed other Draft trends.
Miller Time
The San Jose Sharks took six prospects to dinner and interviewed 50-60 at the Combine this year, according to Morehouse.
This isn’t, of course, the first time that teams meet the draft-eligibles. Throughout the season, area scouts are chatting with the players, in person and on Zoom.
Morehouse has said repeatedly, if he’s not learning about the draft-eligibles until the Combine, he’s not doing his job.
But Morehouse did share an example of another team understanding a player better because of a Combine interview. Morehouse joined the New York Rangers in Aug. 2019, a year after the Rangers selected K’Andre Miller, now on the Canes, with the No. 22 pick.
“I remember [looking] back and K’Andre Miller was a forward until 16,” Morehouse said. “All of a sudden, he’s playing D at the United States development program, and those are all top kids in the world, and everything’s happening fast. It’s rough.”
In-person dinners and interviews at the Combine can tell you just a little more.
“We knew he didn’t play a lot of D, but then when you interview him, when you talk to him, and you get to know him, you’re like this guy, there’s a lot that’s untapped here,” Morehouse said. “You understand he hasn’t had a lot of defensive reps, and now he’s a top pair D in the Stanley Cup Final.”
Think Small?
Speaking of Carolina?
It was noteworthy that the Hurricanes dressed five 6-foot-0 and under skaters, Logan Stankoven, Seth Jarvis, Jackson Blake, Sean Walker, and Shayne Gostisbehere, to topple the bigger Vegas Golden Knights, no under 6-foot-0 skaters, in the Stanley Cup Final.
The NHL being a copycat league, will the San Jose Sharks draft smaller?
They’ve used premium picks on smaller players during the Morehouse regime, like exactly 6-foot-0 or a little under Will Smith and Leo Sahlin Wallenius.
But the Sharks have also chased lots of size, too.
Does the Carolina championship change anything for San Jose?
“If we stick to the best player available, stick to our process, and pay attention to our system and how we do it,” Morehouse said, “it’s not gonna change anything for us.”
It’s not either-or, Morehouse stressed.
“You do really have two teams that are kind of built differently, but they’re both in the Stanley Cup finals,” he said about the perennial contenders. “If you’re a Stanley Cup team every year, is that not a good thing?”
Morehouse added, it’s not about the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
“You see what [William] Eklund is able to do, compete,” he said. “If you’re going to draft small players, they have to be special…we stick to that, and we stick to the small competitiveness.”
Other Trends?
“100 percent, there’s trends.”
Morehouse touched on three of them, first, casting the small versus size debate in a different light.
“One thing I like to do a lot is I study drafts, I study where a certain type of player comes into play, and typically, what ranges they fall in,” he said. “There’s been an uptick in size [and] strength [good] skaters going earlier and earlier.”
So let’s say, in the second round, that you like a big, fleet of foot player about as much as a smaller, skilled player. Who’s more likely to still be around when your turn comes again in the third round?
“I’m very cautious of where I think certain player types will go, so if we feel like that’s a direction we want to go in,” Morehouse said, “maybe you’re looking at taking them higher.”
Or lower.
This could be, just speculating on my part, how the San Jose Sharks came out with a pair of smaller defensemen in fourth-rounder Luca Cagnoni and fifth-rounder Eric Pohlkamp on the 2023 Draft.
Morehouse touched on another trend, how polished the bigger players are now, perhaps another reason why they’re getting drafted higher.
“All these kids have individual skills coaches, they have individual skating coaches. Let’s call it 12 years ago, 15 years ago, maybe some of these bigger kids needed more time, and they weren’t as polished,” he said. “Well, they’re more polished now, they’re checking boxes with the skating, they’re checking boxes with their puck skills, they’re checking boxes with certain things.”
Finally, Morehouse believes that new NCAA-CHL rules will pave the way for more older players to get drafted.
Previously, CHL players couldn’t go to the NCAA, and they were basically out of the CHL by 20.
“A 19-year-old kid playing major-junior and you draft [that] 19-year-old, the rules before was they either go back to junior or they go pro [by 20], so a lot of those kids would get lost in the weeds. It wasn’t as enticing to draft them because the development path was a little bit shorter,” Morehouse said. “Either they play as a 20-year-old [in the NHL] or they play in the American League.”
But now?
“Right now, they can go to college, they can get stronger, they can work on their body, they can work on things. The fact that you have a little bit more time with them, it gives you more of an opportunity to get them in your system and work with them,” Morehouse said. “Some of these kids have longer runways, more practice time that suits certain player types better.”
“You’re gonna see more kids that have gone through a draft. They’ve gone through a draft day, or some guys have gone through two drafts,” Morehouse said. “Age has kind of been thrown out the window.”