I’m sorry for asking this but can you educate me, does kesselring being traded means grier will draft stenberg confirmed? because I think kesselring is a 3rd pairing d? or is his ceiling a 1d? I was hoping for reid or carels but now I feel like stenberg got confirmed? is there any hope they still draft a d at 2?
nope! i don't think so. i am seeing a lot of people (mostly on twitter tbf) saying that drafting stenberg is "confirmed" or "in the bag" now that we've acquired one single defender, and i strongly disagree. lol.
kesselring mostly played 3rd pair (5th/6th defender) in b*ffalo during an injury-plagued season that started off on the wrong foot as early as training camp. he only played 34 games in the regular season.
high ankle sprains are particularly difficult for hockey players to recover from given how essential your ankles are to skating. he was forced out of the lineup basically completely by the trade deadline acquisitions of logan stanley and luke schenn, and also zack metsa (rookie) played better and jumped kesselring in the order. i remember seeing tweets about him being relegated to changing on a plastic chair bc the team didn't have a locker room stall for him anymore, that was around late march (also mentioned in the linked article).
on utah last season (during which he played all 82 games!), he primarily played 2nd/3rd pair, and i think he would ideally land on the sharks' 2nd pair? i do NOT think he has 1st pair ceiling. but also please understand we were truly playing whoever the fuck on defense last year. we were experiencing first pair john klingberg and nick leddy hockey with alarming frequency. we tend to play guys above their typical place on the lineup at our current stage of the rebuild (and bc of this i am v curious to see how mario fares once he finds his next landing spot in free agency), so if kess ends up on our first pair next season, sure lol.
i don't really know why some sharks fans think that we only need 1-2 good players at each position. why do we immediately not need to draft reid/carels/verhoeff/smits/whoever if we acquire one single rhd? why does that mean we immediately are going to pick stenberg? why are people already doing victory laps lol. we just saw two of the deepest teams face off in the stanley cup final, and the team that, by dogged philosophy, always runs four lines just lifted the cup. we need more than just a few good guys. we need good contributing players in every single lineup spot. macklin cannot singlehandedly paper over the deficiencies in our roster forever.
i think it also demonstrates a very fundamental misunderstanding of the nhl draft / development of young talent in this league. we are not the nfl. kids who get drafted into the nhl are younger and not immediately ready to contribute as part of a 82-game nhl lineup, unless you're freaks of nature (pos) like mack and schaef. both reid and carels are committed to play in the ncaa next season (reid at msu, carels at nodak) so i do not even expect to see them anywhere near the nhl until after their ncaa seasons are over in (latest) april. so acquiring kesselring does not make chase reid/carson carels any less necessary.
there is very much hope that gmmg will choose a defender at 2oa. there is also a chance he could take stenberg (assuming he believes stenberg is the best player available), or trade down for a player who can help us push for the playoffs in the upcoming season. all of these options are in the cards. i know people like stenberg and want to make him a shark already but drafting him is NOT confirmed at all. to me!!!!!!
