#wenny

And even more controversial opinion- the concept of the Sharks making an active choice to permanently separate the Willmack line (at least for the time being) seems a bit far-fetched imo.

Even if we remove the Mack/Will chemy factor, I do think Will’s fate as a winger was (for the most part) sealed the minute San Jose went 2nd oa last year & picked up Misa.

On the topic of Misa- I mentioned this in a tag earlier but there is currently a huge Swedish elephant haunting the 2C narrative in the form of one Alexander Wennberg himself.

In Wenny’s exit interviews- he was very open about the fact that him and Misa will be actively competing for the same role, and explicitly said that he doesn’t intend to make it easy for him next season. Even though we know it’s obviously all healthy & well-intended (and he made sure to mention that he’ll be rooting for Misa if he beats him) it did stick out to me because I feel the Sharks are EXTREMELY pro young-core and rarely dip into any rhetoric that doesn’t directly prop-up their rebuild. Seldom will you ever hear any of the vets semi-pulling rank like that.

(For the record- please do not interpret this as Wenny hate. I think he’s one of the best things to happen to the current San Jose roster & he genuinely contributes so much to the culture. And I include his support of the young core in that.)

But I do think there’s a very human ego element involved with the fight for the 2C position that would ultimately affect the possibility of Will ever being considered for a center role. I imagine Misa & Wenny will be squabbling over the 2C & 3C positions for the foreseeable future.

And I don’t think we would ever see Will shifted down to a 4C role for similar reasons to those listed above. Will is a fan-favorite player & 4th oa pick, second in points this season only to Mack himself despite the huge chunks of games he missed back in December/Jan. You don’t move a player like that down to the 4th line. The optics would be insane. Even if it’s meant to be a “promotion” kind of situation with him moving back to the flashier, more familiar position.

When & if the day ever comes where Will is pulled off first line (& again-assuming that in this hypothetical situation our roster is pretty much the same) I’d put money on him playing on Wenny’s wing. I also do think it’s worth noting that Misa is in desperate need of a winger that can keep up with his speed. For that reason- I currently think it’s more likely that we’ll see Stenberg being developed on his line rather than them pushing for him to play with Mack.

*whispers* And yes- I do think there’s an underlying Mack factor haunting the narrative in this as well. The more records he breaks, the more unspoken sway his preferences will have on his line. Even if he’s too polite to ever explicitly ask for anything/ voice his opinions on any of it.