San Jose Sharks
Sharks Trade Granlund, Ceci to Stars for Picks

The San Jose Sharks have dealt their biggest Trade Deadline chip.
The Sharks have traded leading scorer Mikael Granlund and stalwart defenseman Cody Ceci to the Dallas Stars for the Stars’ 2025 first-round pick and a conditional 2025 third-round pick.
San Jose gets Dallas’ third if the Stars advance to the 2025 Stanley Cup Final. If not, the Sharks will receive the Winnipeg Jets’ 2025 fourth instead.
“I call him a Swiss Army knife,” Stars GM Jim Nill said of the versatile Granlund, before joking, “Maybe a Finnish Army knife.”
“Granny and Cec, are two players that did really well for us,” San Jose Sharks GM Mike Grier said. “We valued and we set our price out, Dallas was ready to meet it. That’s really the main reason why we did it.”
Granlund, 32, led the Sharks last season with 60 points in 69 games and was the media-voted Team MVP. This year, the all-situations center has been just as good, pacing San Jose with 45 points in 52 contests.
He was just named alternate captain for Team Finland at the upcoming Four Nations Face-Off.
The Sharks alternate captain was also a huge locker room influence on San Jose’s young forwards, from Macklin Celebrini to Will Smith to William Eklund to Fabian Zetterlund.
Ceci, 30, was acquired from the Edmonton Oilers in the off-season. The stay-at-home defender, averaging 21:46 a night, was the Sharks’ No. 2 defenseman.
Grier called the go-to penalty killer a “stabilizing force” for the youngsters on San Jose’s blueline.
Both Granlund and Ceci, however, were UFAs.
So the San Jose Sharks, in the midst of their rebuild, looked to the future once again with this trade, while Dallas armed themselves for another run to the Cup.
Statement from Mikael Granlund, on his way to catch his flight to Dallas:
“I really enjoyed my time in San Jose, I think it was the right place at the right time for me and the Sharks. I had lots of fun working with the young core, good group of guys and a really nice community.…
— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) February 1, 2025
Excellent trade for both teams. Dallas is already stacked with young talent but they needed depth to compete with Winnipeg and Colorado. This is a “we’re going for the cup” move.
On the other hand, I never thought the Sharks could manufacture a first round draft pick for their veterans but there you go.
The return is correct if not a little bit more than I was expecting. Grier must be a top tier negotiator. These picks can also be flipped for either more draft capital or even a player young enough to join the new core. Let’s see.
I’m glad they’re going to a likeable contender. Jim Nill is a very respectable GM for the way he treated Pavelski as well. I can safely say I’ll be joining the Stars bandwagon for the playoffs.
People who are nice will now root for Dallas to do well.
But I think I am more pragmatic. I am rooting for them to lose as much as possible in the regular season and be out in the first round of the playoffs so their pick can be higher.
Having said that, the playoff matches are super confusing. Can anyone please explain who the stars are likely to face in the first round?
Lol ok. The bottom half of this upcoming draft are guys that would have been 2nd and 3rd round picks in the last couple drafts. And it’s not being “nice” to root for Dallas, it’s being excited to watch top level hockey again. I’m a sharks fan but I’m a hockey fan first and foremost.
It seems like every year people talk about “x part of the draft is soft” but by draft day, there are enough players who distinguish themselves.
Plus, we can always trade up in the first round like we did last year.
There are oddities in almost every draft. Find that guy and the entire draft class looks so much better.
Sharks 2003: Matt Carle, Steve Bernier, Milan Michalek. All taken in rd 1 or 2. Also, Joe Pavelski in rd 7.
But more to the point, Wyatt Johnson at 23rd overall in 2021. JJ Peterka at 34th and Brock Faber at 45 in 2020. Thomas Harley at 18 in 2019. Rasmus Sandin at 29 and K’Andre Miller at 22 in 2018.
Most every draft has good players who bloom a bit later.
Wonderful. So we can find 2nd and 3rd round talent in round 5 to 7.
So lets trade for additional late round picks in the bottom half of this upcoming draft with our remaining UFAs
If I understand it correctly, it’s almost certain to be a first round matchup of Dallas vs. Minnesota?
It’s far too early to predict what the playoff match ups might be.
They are currently 2nd in the Central division with 67 points they will most likely face the Wild who have 66 points. For that to change the Avalanche(64 points) would need to pass either of the afore mentioned teams; or they need to turn it up to pass the Jets(75 points) in which case they would face one of the wildcard teams; the could also collapse without Heiskonen and become a wildcard team.
Same. Want the Sharks to get a higher 1st rounder, the upgrade from rd 4 to rd 3 isn’t as valuable as moving up a few spots in rd 1
I like the CBus jackets I like the way they play and I like an underdog
I’m already playing armchair GM and hoping this first can be used as a lubricant to pry open NJ RHD pipeline and start cooking up a deal to get us either Nemec or Casey. Maybe a combo of Kunin (they need bottom 6 depth), Musty, Dallas 1st and our 2nd for Nemec? I don’t know, but getting a 20/21 yr old high end right hand d prospect would be a slam dunk in my book. We will be drafting top 3 most likely and can address a top forward with the draft most likely if we miss out on Schaefer.
4 assets for 1 player is a bit much. But if you remove Musty from that list, it looks reasonable.
Agreed. Despite the messed up year of development I’m all for keeping him if possible.
Musty’s year hasn’t been entirely flushed down the toilet. His scoring is pretty close to last year (he had 3 pts last night) and Sudbury has been much improved over last year. I haven’t heard much about improvements to his 200 ft game, though. I would expect we see Musty in the AHL next year and hopefully that gives him the right level of experience to really work on his weaknesses. I have a little bit of the same fear for Dickinson in that I think both guys have squeezed everything they are likely to get out of juniors… And… Read more »
He’s killing penalties now there which is a good sign.
With you 100%. If it helps bring back one of those guys this will be a slam dunk move.
Agreed! Let’s trade that Dallas 1st in a package for Nemec! I don’t know if I’d include Musty in that NJ trade, though. Maybe one of Bystedt, Chernyshov, Zetterlund, Lund, or Graf instead of Musty. Sturm and/or Bordeleau could also be added as a sweetener.
How’s
Dallas 2025 1st
Avalanche 2026 2nd
Avalanche 2025 3rd
Graf
Bordeleau
Kunin
Sturm
For Nemec and whoever NJ wants to send back in order to fit Kunin and Sturm.
Yeah honestly I was just kicking around names NJ may want. I would think the first and a top caliber prospect would love the needle. Honestly I love Musty, but if you want a top player you need to be willing to part with one too, and unfortunately I think he’s the most expendable/replaceable through FA. Top RHD pairing guys are rare and this one fits our timeline perfectly.
I don’t know how NJ sees Casey going forward. On Nemec (whom I would prefer) it’s hard to say without having seen him play much, but behind the scenes, from all accounts I’ve read, Nemec is still highly regarded and a probability to pan out as a higher end RD. They just want him to iron out some details in his defensive game while still being a productive offensive force in the AHL. Sharks fans are notably higher on Musty than the rest of the league no doubt. He was a good pick later in the 1st but he’s still… Read more »
I’m a pretty pessimistic dude, and even I think that musty is def a top 6 guy, with a 3rd line floor kind of guy.
One angle to consider is that Nemec is currently being boxed out by players they feel are better for winning right now, and if they’re in win now mode the haul of picks including thay first rounder they got from us could stay on the move and be used to build a package for a forward they want from someone else. Not saying it would, but if Nemec isn’t in their win now plans and they could use him to get picks to get their man, it’s not impossible.
That’s high but if I was new jersey I’d be sending in the details to the league for finalization of the deal the second I heard that offer.
Very happy with this trade. I’ll be even happier if they use the pick to trade for a defensive prospect or very young established D-man.
Let’s get an established d-man, something to start rebuilding the current sieve.
Love it!! I wasn’t sure if Granny could get us a first round pick. I like Grier’s comments earlier this week about flipping picks for players like he did with Asky.
Hope people don’t lose sight of the fact that tearing it down is the easy part. Anyone could do it. If they’re 32nd out of 32 at this time next year he better hear about it from someone
So far so good on the teardown, though, and that was great GMing winning the lottery and drafting Celebrini too.
I would love to see Grier keep getting some bigger bodies and see less of the team getting pushed around in all zones next year, even Duehr seems to have helped with this (yes, I know he’s not a perfect piece by any stretch).
Why do I do hard drugs and think Ekblad is a possibility? Damn he would be such a perfect piece for this team to take the next step.
Buckets of cash can talk. It’s not impossible. A nice overpay on a shorter deal, with the cap going up could set him up nicely for his last bigger contract being higher. You never know.
And by shorter I mean, 3-4 years
Yeah, like Toffoli, I think a player like Ekblad would be worth a 4 year overpay. That would still allow for multiple Wennberg type overpays for 2 years and I think that would be the shot in the arm this team needs to get out of the bottom tier of the league
Tearing it down wasn’t that easy. GMMG had to convince Hasso and the rest of the Sharks brass that this team needed a tear down. A group highly resistant to the rebuild idea.
GMMG deserves a ton of credit for making that happen. A ton.
I think finishing at the bottom of the league for multiple years accomplished that. Not anything MG said.
I recall during the hiring process things Joe Will said (we’ve got some good things happening) plus reports about what Hasso was saying (I suppose from some of the people he interviewed).
There was a lot of denial inside the organization. The impression I got was that Hasso’s thinking was “I’m too old to do a rebuild.” And that the Sharks people around Hasso had put stakes in the ground telling him they didn’t need a rebuild.
I think the buiding up is looking pretty good so far:
Celebrini
Smith
Askarov
Eklund
Dickinson
Musty
Zetterlund
Don’t forget Chernyshov. He’s my dark horse to make the NHL next season. Already played in the KHL and looked good.
Yeah I think he’s has the it more than anyone besides Celebrini. Could be wrong though, we’ve seen shifty Russians fail before, except he has the size and loves using it to go inside. If you could combine him, musty and haltunnen you’d have a serious top 10 player in the league.
couple of years ago, I wrote Keegan that Grier’s tenure in San Jose would be defined by his drafting. 3 elements to that: first — being good at assessing the talent in the draft second — getting volume, more picks, especially at the high end = more opportunity third — luck. Sometimes the ball bounces your way. Or the team in front of you misses and leaves you with a better choice. Or you get Joe Pavelski in rd 7. Too early to make anything conclusive on the 1st point — assessing talent. But he has gotten volume, and much… Read more »
Regarding volume, sometimes I look at other rebuilding teams, and we have far fewer picks. For example, Fliers have 7 picks in the first 2 rounds of this draft. The Coyotes used to have sooo many 1st and 2nd round picks. It feels like the players drafted are great, but the volume doesn’t feel as high as some other teams.
Fair enough. Though I don’t feel its essential to win the ‘volume’ battle. Its important to be among the teams getting above well average volume. For example, the reason the Sharks don’t have 3 first rounders in this draft is because they traded one of those away for Askarov. They traded a 1st and a 2nd last season to move up to 11th overall. And still have 2 first rounders this draft and 2 second round selections in the next. fwiw, puckpedia has Pick Value Total of 326.37 for the Sharks over the next 3 drafts. Which is 4th highest.… Read more »
Sometimes wonder if that volume is a fine line, where it can create an issue for teams having too much volume. Especially, in successive years. That they get married to their draft volumes, and wait for them to mature instead of building. A nice balance, so have influx of young talent for while, and use picks for targeted acquisition, as well as creating an environment that attracts more established players. That is the lesson I would take away from some of the more protracted “rebuilds”.
Picks = opportunity.
End of the day, most of what the Sharks need should be acquired via the draft. But there’s no reason to be doctrinaire about it. If picks = talent and that talent comes a different path, I’m good. The Askarov trade is an example of that.
No, no, no. What the Sharks need should be acquired by all methods, draft, free agency and trades for vets. Just can’t be all young guns hoping to mature.
I wouldn’t use Philly as an example. Yes they have quite a few in the 1st and 2nd but teams seem more willing to trade these draft picks due to the weak pool.
Briere also seems to be stockpiling for a bigger move near the deadline. I would bet by draft day they’ll have a lower amount.
And yeah, Coyotes had several but they were bottom of the barrel for a long time and it didn’t amount to much.
Always fear the unknown in terms of growth, transition, right mentoring, and luck. Seems it can come pretty deep down the draft. Honestly IDK how good the Sharks org is at the right picks not to mention the ability/committment to seeing them develop. But hey, that’s the business the Sharks are in these years….
One thought on this trade deadline is that it’s a seller’s market. There are about 20 buyers and 12 sellers (approx).
I wonder if we held out, we could have gotten more.
The current return feels good, but I wonder if we could have gotten more based on the current trade market.
Not losing any sleep on this. It was fair value and holding out for more has its own set of risks. If anything, it lets other teams know if they want an asset from the Sharks, they shouldn’t dawdle, they need to come in with a strong offer, early.
Dallas just took on $8M (full season number, I know) in cap space, I’m not sure how many teams could have done that. Also with Granny playing 4 Nations, there was a non zero risk of injury.
A lot of folks questioned whether the team could get a 1 and they did. I’ll take it
Good point about the full cap space.
Yeah if the stars didnt shift 3 guys to ltir today that probably doesn’t happen without a cap dump coming back.
Or Granny could have broken his leg in game one of the four nations tourney and you get nothing.
Feb 1, 2024.
We are now 17 months to the day that it gets announced Macklin has re-signed with San Jose for an 8 year, $15mil per year deal.
Carnac has spoken?
Sad to see Granlund go. He was great on and off the ice. Excellent mentor for the younger Lunds. Here’s hoping we sign him as a UFA in the summer. That said, what a awesome trade! Two capdumps turned into a 1st and a 4th/3rd. Nice work GMMG. How good does that Karlsson trade look now?! To recap, the Sharks got: 2024 1st (Dickinson) Granlund (2025 1st) Free from 90% of EK’s contract Rutta (meh) Hoffman (helped tank for Celebrini) And Granlund has been much better for the Sharks than Karlsson has for the Penguins. If we get anything at… Read more »
I’ll miss him. I really appreciated his lead by example and hanging in there on a bad team. Glad to see him go to such a good team. His patience paid off! Good Luck, Granny!
There is a lot of season left, it’ll be interesting to see how many of the young sharks are ready for increased responsibility. Will smith was the latest granlund beneficiary, and I’m guessing his production drops a bit now. He may also be forced into the center position, which he may or may not be ready for. Hopefully wennberg stays healthy the rest of the year or it could get ugly up the middle. With Ceci gone, Thompson probably gets more opportunity in the top 4. This is a good chance for the organization to decide if he’s part of… Read more »
I liked Ceci despite the haters but this is a great point. It indicates that Grier knows a real upgrade is required, and forces him to find one.