San Jose Sharks
Sharks’ Young Guns on Losing Granlund’s Leadership

And the San Jose Sharks move on.
On Saturday, the Sharks sent alternate captain and leading scorer Mikael Granlund, along with No. 2 defenseman Cody Ceci to the Dallas Stars for a 2025 first-round pick and a 2025 conditional fourth.
Granlund also paced San Jose forwards in Overall, Power Play, and Short-Handed Ice-Time Per Game, just one of two players, Jack Eichel the other, to lead his team’s forwards in that troika of key categories.
“He did everything for us. PK, power play, 5-on-6, 6-on-5,” Macklin Celebrini said. “He’s such a smart player. It’s tough to replace a guy like that.”
But Granlund’s most-lasting impact on the Sharks might have been his leadership and mentorship of young forwards like Celebrini, William Eklund, Fabian Zetterlund, and Will Smith through back-to-back trying seasons.
“He works hard everyday. He shows the young guys how to work,” Eklund, who broke out last year mostly on a line with Granlund, said.
“Meant a lot, I think just little stuff,” rookie Smith, who enjoyed the majority of his 5-on-5 production this season with Granlund on the ice, 10 of 18 points, said. “Every day, we’d go out before practice and work on [stuff].”
Eklund echoed that: “Those small things in the game. He’s really good at talking and understanding what was going [on]. Before practices, he would always be out there, working [his] craft out there, and get better.”
Off the ice, the kids knew that they could always turn to “Granny” too.
Smith says Granlund took him aside during training camp to let him know that his door was always open.
“You kind of ask advice. What do you think? What he thought? What could be done differently? Those kinds of things, slow learning, learning opportunities throughout like plays and games,” Macklin Celebrini said last month. “He’s great like that, where he doesn’t always think he’s right or his way’s the only way. He’ll talk to you, see what you saw, he’s pretty understanding when it comes to different plays.”
“He’s been kind of a dad,” Fabian Zetterlund said last season. “Even off the ice, I learn something new every day from him.”
Fabian Zetterlund’s instagram story 🥺#TheFutureIsTeal pic.twitter.com/nULw7nDjGU
— SnipeCity420 (@SnipeCity420) February 1, 2025
“Sometimes, you take a dinner with him on the road or something,” Eklund said. “He can just talk about what he [went] through.”
Granlund, the No. 9 pick of the 2010 Draft, went through the hype machine in Finland and with the Minnesota Wild. That’s something that he can share with 2024 No. 1 Celebrini, 2023 No. 4 Smith, and 2021 No. 7 Eklund.
“We have a lot of guys who have been in the same situation coming [in], he [got] drafted pretty high,” Eklund said. “Couple guys here, same route, so he knows a lot about it. He’s been good for me and all the young players here.”
Fellow alternate captain Luke Kunin, the No. 15 pick of the 2016 Draft, has seen this first-hand for longer than just about anybody.
Kunin played with Granlund on the Wild from 2017 to 2019, Nashville Predators from 2020 to 2022, and San Jose Sharks from 2023 to yesterday.
“He’s a pro. He does everything the right way. I learned from him when I was in Minnesota. Nothing’s changed since, years later with these young guys,” Kunin said. “You just watch him. You watch what he does, how he approaches everything, and how hard he works, puts in the time and all the little things. So I think they learned a lot from him.”
But hockey is a business, the Sharks are in a rebuild, and the 32-year-old veteran is gone.
“I don’t know if we can replace [Granlund’s leadership] for the rest of the season,” GM Mike Grier acknowledged on Monday. “You got to hope that some of the lessons and the things in how he carried himself and how hard he played and practiced kind of rubbed off on these guys, and they can continue to move forward with it.”
“It’s tough. Great treatment [from him], great friend. He’s been everything you can expect from a leader standpoint,” Eklund said. “It’s time for our young guys to step up here and take big roles.”
Worth noting, Granlund did some career rehab in San Jose. Almost 2 years ago, coming out of Pittsburgh, his rep had taken a big hit and he was viewed as a cap dump (which pretty much was the case). A year ago, Sheng and Keegan thought his $5mil AAV was a problem and he was worth a 3rd rounder. Now, he’s easily worth his AAV, worth a 1st rounder and getting high praise from the Sharks as both a really good leader and player. I hope other vets are noticing that San Jose is a place where good players can… Read more »
I agree with all of this. Idk if the rest of the NHL has noticed yet but in the GMMG era, Granny, Blackwood, Kunin, Duclair, to name a few, all came here and were able to resurrect their values and seemed to have grown bonds with each other. That’s pretty special and I hope continues as the culture.
Not that the Sharks need anymore reclamation projects but like you said, a really good sign for the org both internally and externally.
You can even argue that Karlsson resurrected his value in the GMMG era as well. I thought for sure his contract was un-tradable.
We should all be very grateful to Quinn for that. Basically told him to just go score.
I was going to include him but he ruined his status on the Sharks being injured and taking years to get to his 100 point season.
It’s a great point but it also highlights the big hump GMMG has to overcome: he sets guys up to have individual success (usually maxing out right before a trade) but at the expense of the rest of the team. Timo got primo deployment in 2022 while the team fell off; even more noticeable during Karlsson’s 2023 season. Granlund’s rehab helped the team, but has the SJS system created too much funneling through One Guy at a time? Macklin’s the obvious next beneficiary for that All-for-One setup but more than getting Cele a Calder, this group needs to learn how… Read more »
I don’t think setting one player up for success harms the team. Look at how good teams use their best players – Colorado, for example, runs everything through mackinnon and makar and other players benefit from maximizing their greatness.
In granlund’s time, I don’t know how you can argue his success didn’t help eklund, Zetterlund, and smith.
That’s not how it worked and Grier had very little if anything to do with that. Those are coaching thing and the players were the offensive leaders because they were all the talent the team had. Not to mention you’re talking about 3 different systems under 3 different coaches. EK65 is the only one we’re Grier may have said “hey let him just play pond hockey and go score and maybe we’ll be able to rehab his value to dump the contract”. No one is “funneling “. The cream rises to the top and that earns them the most opportunities… Read more »
I wouldn’t say they were all inflated to the same extent – Karlsson’s deployment was the most transparent shop-job, and I think a cut and dry case of Grier and Karlsson both knowing that if he wanted to get moved he’d have to play his way out, and then being given opportunities to do so. On the opposite end I would say is Granlund, who as Bryan noted above offered a lot of team building value in mentorship – but while he certainly fit the description “cream rises to the top,” did he become a crutch? For all he taught… Read more »
Evander Kane was more veteran and more physical. Meier was still just breaking into the league. You’re making much ado about nothing. You’re whole premise is just out there and not representative of what happened.
If you choose not to believe that Grier put the org’s focus on maximizing specific players’ value to sell high on, that’s certainly your perogative, though I’m curious if you talk to people in real life the way you do online.
Quick comment on Ceci since his contribution is going unnoticed.
Not a great player, likely worth a 3rd or 4th. But he was a good complimentary player, especially with Walman, who did the puck moving. Looked up the stat line on naturalstattrick which confirmed the eye test. The pairing has 30 goals for, 29 goals against. Reminded me a bit of Brendan Dillon. On his own, OK. But he was the right complement for several good d-men.
They just had unsustainably hot finishing while together. 50.9 GF% vs 45.0 xGF%. Walman statistically has been so much better away from Ceci than with him outside of on-ice finishing.
With v Without
CF% – 47.3 v 51.0
xGF% – 45.0 vs 54.7
SCF% – 40.4 vs 50.9
HDCF% – 42.3 vs 53.7
Ceci was not good. He served his role eating some tough matchups and minutes but we were severely outplayed when Ceci was on the ice.
Data – https://www.naturalstattrick.com/linestats.php?fromseason=20242025&thruseason=20242025&stype=2&sit=5v5&score=all&rate=y&team=S.J&vteam=ALL&view=wowy&loc=B&gpfilt=none&fd=2024-10-04&td=2025-04-17&tgp=2000&strict=incl&p1=8476879&p2=8478013&p3=0&p4=0&p5=0
The best thing that could happen from this trade would be pairing TL37 with Walman moving forward.
Ew no. Walman needs a physical stopper. You’re also hosing you’re 2nd pair.
Man I remember Dilly bring juice and great physicality every single night and he was pretty mobile for a big man. Cece was not that
Personally I agree with Sheng that his leadership was invaluable, and he wanted to stay and probably would have re-signed for a high but short time. He was making the young players better.
First GMMG decision I truly feel a mistake, and wasn’t worth the cost vs benefit for the Sharks. ☹️
Can’t build a team being overly emotionally attached. He’ll have every opportunity to re-sign in the offseason if it was so great. No guarantee he wants to resign. Players say that all the time and leave anyway.
I’m kinda with you on that (but like Shork said, no guarantee he would re-sign)… but yeah, I worry about losing Granlund’s leadership and his ability to play throughout the lineup and help develop some of these guys at the NHL level. I really hope Grier is able to re-sign him come July 1, but that happens so infrequently I’m not going to get my hopes up.
Listening to Sheng emphatically make the case that moving Eyssimont to Tampa was a poor move for a few of the same reasons that moving Granlund was a mistake, really got me onboard with that perspective right after the move. At first I felt it was an odd decision since I thought Eyssimont was a great addition to the lineup by adding fire and effort to the lines, even though moving a waiver claim for a 4th is good asset management. His position that it was great for the asset management part of the organization but poor for roster management… Read more »
I would rather they go sign Tavares or someone else like that. If you’re going to overpay to convince a forward to play in SJ, go for someone who would be a top 6 player on a contender. Granlund is seen as a 3c on a contender.
If you look at outside media, nobody is questioning the trade’s value for San Jose. To everybody on the outside, a 1st and 3rd/4th round pick for Granlund and Ceci as RENTALS is a no-brainer. RENTALS!!!! This is a classic case of home fans and home media getting emotionally attached and overvaluing their guys. This fanbase should be grateful that Mike Grier is willing to do what needs to be done.
I thought Granny’s leadership might’ve been getting overhyped a bit in the other article and the pod, but this article makes it pretty clear that it’s deservedly hyped. I still 100% think you make the trade, but the guy does seem like a great leader. He’s not the only one in the league though and i am sure they will find someone similar in the offseason.
Time will tell if this was good or bad. A few FA this summer look interesting, Marner, Rantanen, Boeser to name a few. Ekblad and Chychrun on the back end. If the goal is to get better next year, may be one or two of them, they are all in their 20s still. A few guys in their 30s to provide leadership include Tavaras (not sure on this one), Nelson, and Marchand (I just threw up in my mouth).
Nelson would be a great fit. Big body, can still score, and an NHL captain.
I would love Marchand. 🤣
Said this on the podcast comments on Spotify but really just disappointed in Sheng and his opinions around this are just awful. We get it you thought he had good leadership qualities. At the end of the day it’s a business and they got a 1st they will likely flip into a better player or at least a younger more cost controlled player. Sheng can hate on this trade all he wants MG did a good thing and i think most of us as fans support him regardless of what bad takes Sheng has about this not being a good… Read more »
We can all have opinions. It is easy to commend Grier because we have a tangible return to point to in the pick, relative to hypotheticals on what may have happened in the summer. It, however should not be questioned that 1) not all veterans help your young core develop, 2) Granlund has already shown that he has done that with Eklund, Zetterlund and now Smith, 3) Granlund’s price for an extension was not considered prohibitive, 4) at some point you need to make upwards progress and accumulating future assets won’t help much. I hope we package the late first… Read more »
Sorry, but some of these reactions go way too far off the homer-o-meter. A 1st and 3rd/4th for Granlund and Ceci as RENTALS is a complete no-brainer. You really have to look at what outside media has to say about this to get a bit of objectivity. Nobody from the outside thinks this is somehow a bad deal for San Jose. Of course Granlund has value. You don’t trade garbage and get back a first round pick. But you also don’t build a future contender by passing up 1st round picks. There will be another off-season. There will be more… Read more »