Which Prospects Did Ex-Sharks Scouts Grillo, Wilson Jr., Marchment & More Stump For? (+)

Doug Wilson isn’t the only San Jose Sharks mainstay that’s left the organization.

2023-24 will mark the first time that a Grillo hasn’t been with the Sharks.

Quietly this past summer, Rob Grillo, who’s been an amateur scout for the Sharks since Aug. 1992, joined the Dallas Stars.

Before Rob, his father Chuck Grillo was director of player personnel and VP of hockey operations for the Sharks from their expansion campaign to 1996. Most famously, Chuck was part of the so-called “three-headed monster”, the second-year decision-making troika that included Dean Lombardi and George Kingston.

Anyway, Rob Grillo isn’t the only amateur scout who’s left San Jose in the last two off-seasons. Doug Wilson Jr., Gilles Cote, Brian Gross, and Mike Yandle have also departed, as new GM Mike Grier molds the Sharks organization to his vision.

Also, tragically, amateur scout and player development coach Bryan Marchment passed away on the eve of the 2022 Draft.

“It is a lonely, thankless task with poor pay, constant travel, and lonely motel rooms,” Mike Tessier wrote in his review of Gare Joyce’s behind-the-scenes look at the life of an NHL amateur scout, Future Greats and Heartbreaks, “Scouts live in the corners of rinks, scribbling notes about players’ tendencies and abilities, even ignoring the game itself.”

So I wanted to recognize these Sharks scouts here.

Over the years, from various league sources, I’ve learned about some of these scouts’ successes, the gems that they’ve dug up. Especially in the later rounds of the Draft, a prospect needs a scout on his side, someone to bang the table for him to sway a GM or director of amateur scouting.

So which prospects can San Jose Sharks fans thank Grillo, Wilson Jr., Cote, Gross, Yandle, and Marchment for?