Scouts Talk Dadonov, Granlund, Smith & Other Top UFA Forwards

The 2020 NHL Draft is over, now the work toward making next year’s San Jose Sharks competitive begins.

Well, you can argue that it began on Monday, when Doug Wilson brought in Devan Dubnyk to help shore up the goaltending and Ryan Donato to add secondary scoring.

Scouts Dish on Donato & Dubnyk

It continues on Friday for the San Jose Sharks with the beginning of free agency.

San Jose Hockey Now has already spoken with NHL scouts about possible bargain UFA gems like Alex Galchenyuk, Cody Eakin, Colin Wilson, Conor Sheary, Ilya Kovalchuk, Jimmy Vesey, Mattias Janmark, Michael Frolik, Pat Maroon, Tyler Ennis, Vladimir Sobotka, and Wayne Simmonds:

Scouts Talk Sharks & Bargain UFA Forwards

We’ve also covered buyout UFAs like Bobby Ryan, Michael Grabner, and Kyle Turris:

A Scout’s Argument for Bobby Ryan

A Scout’s Argument Against Signing Michael Grabner

Scouts on How Potential Buyout UFAs Would Fit Sharks

We will get to some of the better RFAs who weren’t qualified and will therefore become UFAs: Anthony Duclair, Andreas Athanasiou, Vinnie Hinostroza, Nick Cousins, and Dominik Kahun. But not yet.

Instead, let’s focus right now on the cream of the UFA forward crop. Two NHL scouts gave San Jose Hockey Now detailed scouting reports about 10 of the better UFA forwards: Mikael Granlund, Craig Smith, Erik Haula, Evgenii Dadonov, Carl Soderberg, Valeri Nichushkin (actually a RFA despite being a UFA last summer), Jesper Fast, Vladislav Namestnikov, Josh Leivo, and Tyler Toffoli.

Are any of those forwards a good fit for the San Jose Sharks?