Although the San Jose Sharks remain near the bottom of the NHL standings, they have a reason for hope that isn’t directly linked to their current performance. The San Jose Barracuda of the American Hockey League (AHL) are off to a strong start, sitting second in the Pacific Division with 12 points through nine games. Their standing is far from last season when they finished last in the division with just 62 points. For years, the Sharks have been working on building up their prospect pool. Through the Barracuda, we are now seeing some of the first tangible payoffs of those efforts, and they could pay dividends for the big club in the coming seasons.
Likely Future Sharks Leading Barracuda’s Success
It’s not just that the Barracuda are winning at a significantly higher rate compared to previous seasons. The players driving the results are largely those who will be expected to contribute to the Sharks in the coming years.
The Barracuda’s leader in points is Collin Graf, who briefly appeared for the Sharks last season and will almost certainly be back on their roster soon enough. 2023 fourth-round pick Luca Cagnoni, expected to eventually be a key part of the Sharks’ blue line, has been by far the Barracuda’s best offensive defenseman so far. Filip Bystedt, Ethan Cardwell and Kasper Halttunen were all Sharks draft picks who are making meaningful offensive impacts.
However, the strong results aren’t just on offense. Highly prized goaltender acquisition Yaroslav Askarov has been one of the AHL’s best goalies this season, posting a 5-1-0 record, a 1.51 goals-against average and a .950 save percentage. Although early, those numbers are exactly what the Sharks hoped for when they traded for him.
The Sharks’ prospect group has gone from middling to one of the NHL’s elite in just a few seasons. Now that many of those prospects are taking the ice together, we’re getting our first look at how they can produce as a unit, and the early returns have been highly positive. Now the hope is that this same group can eventually team up with those who have reached the NHL, such as Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith, and form a core that turns the Sharks into contenders.
Barracuda Players Starting to Get Looks at NHL Level
Most of the Barracuda’s best players won’t be Sharks in the immediate future, but they’re beginning to make their way to the roster in short stints. Graf got a glimpse last season, recording two assists in seven games and receiving time on the power-play unit. Cardwell made his NHL debut this season and showed progress even in just a three-game stretch. Danil Gushchin played his way onto the opening-night roster, and although he and Cardwell have now been sent back to the Barracuda to make room for players returning from injury, they should eventually have steadier spots with the Sharks.
Related: Get to Know San Jose Sharks Prospect Ethan Cardwell
As the Sharks’ and Barracuda’s seasons progress, they’ll likely continue this trend by giving Barracuda players short spurts at the NHL level as injury replacements and other fill-ins. Those brief stretches may not be enough to make any major judgments about the players’ futures with the Sharks, but they’ll allow those players to get a sense of NHL hockey and prepare them for when they’ll be counted on more permanently.
Sharks Don’t Need to Rush Development
Even if the Barracuda continue their success and give the Sharks even more hope for the future, they don’t need to promote anyone to the NHL too quickly. The Sharks have improved from last season but are still struggling, and consistently losing can be brutal for players trying to adjust to a new level and prove they deserve to stay there. As a team still in contention for a top-five pick this season, they don’t need to make call-ups as an experiment to produce winning and can instead focus on building up their prospect group even more. And as Smith’s inconsistencies this season have shown, even elite young players can have difficulties finding their footing in the NHL.
The Sharks finally have a large percentage of their top prospects playing together in North America, and the on-ice results so far suggest a playoff-caliber team. However, in the larger context of the organization, they can afford to be patient. They can give current Barracuda players time to develop and wait for even more prospects to come along. If they do, they can go from having one of the AHL’s better teams to one of the NHL’s best.
