San Jose Sharks take Will Smith at NHL Draft in Nashville
The San Jose Sharks selected Will Smith with the No. 4 overall pick in the first round of Wednesday’s NHL Draft in Nashville, Tennessee, taking a player they hope will someday be the franchise’s No. 1 centerman.
Smith, 18, is considered a game-breaker who possesses terrific vision and hockey sense. He had 127 points in 60 games for the U.S. National under-18 team this past season — second in program history only to New Jersey’s Jack Hughes — and his skillset has drawn comparisons to Vancouver’s J.T. Miller and Anaheim’s Trevor Zegras.
Patrick Marleau, who recently rejoined the Sharks organization as a player development coach and hockey operations advisor, made the draft announcement at Bridgestone Arena.
“It’s unbelievable,” Smith said. “Trying to kind of soak it in right now and I just can’t wait to see my family and celebrate with them.”
The Sharks also had the No. 26 overall pick in the first round and used it on 6-foot-2, 190-pound winger Quentin Musty, who had 78 points in 53 regular season games this year for Sudbury of the OHL.
The Sharks acquired that pick from New Jersey as part of the Feb. 26 trade that sent Timo Meier to the Devils, giving San Jose two first-round picks for the first time since 2007. Smith, from Lexington, Mass., and Musty, from Hamburg, N.Y., were two of the five American players taken among the top 26 selections.
The “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” theme song played as Smith came to the stage to shake hands with Marleau, general manager Mike Grier, and other members of the Sharks’ front office.
“I feel like I’ve got to add to the name,” Smith told ESPN when asked about the theme song, which he sang briefly on national television. “I’m trying to own it and I love the song, too.”
The Sharks, who have all kinds of ties to the Boston area, sat down with Smith at the NHL combine earlier this month, and came away excited about his potential. Smith briefly went to high school with Grier’s son, Jayden, in the Boston area, so there was no lack of familiarity.
“People kind of started to catch on as the draft year went on, the connection I had,” Smith said. “It’s a little bit of a Boston reunion here, so it’s nice.”
While Smith, who is listed at 6-foot and 180 pounds, needs vast improvement in his two-way game, a year at Boston College should help him become a more well-rounded player, and he could turn pro as soon as next year.
“It’s easy to notice and see Will’s ability, his hockey sense, his skill set, but there’s a lot of fire between his ears,” said Chris Morehouse, the Sharks’ director of amateur scouting.
“When you get a chance to sit down and go through the process as we have over the last couple of months, really digging into his character, that’s a huge part of it for us. When you have that level of talent, you make the other players around you that much better on the ice, and you back it up with that competitive fire and wanting to be the best, that’s a really, really nice package to have.”
Smith was named the MVP of the Under-18 World Championships in April after he led the tournament in Switzerland with nine goals and 20 points in nine games.
“Sometimes when you have guys who are really great skaters, the hands don’t mesh with the feet, or the brain doesn’t necessarily mesh with the feet,” Sportsnet draft analyst Sam Cosentino told this news organization recently. “I think for Will, all of those things come together. You get the hands, you’ve got the feet, and you’ve got the brain, and I think that’s what makes him special.”
The Sharks’ selection came after Connor Bedard, Leo Carlsson, and Adam Fantilli went first, second, and third overall to Chicago, Anaheim, and Columbus, respectively.
The Sharks at No. 4 also had the option of taking Russian winger Matvei Michkov, thought by some to be the second-most skilled player available behind Bedard, or David Reinbacher, thought to be the best defenseman in the draft.
Reinbacher went fifth overall to Montreal, and Michkov, who supposedly won’t be available to come to North America for another three years because of his KHL contract, went seventh overall to Philadelphia.
“We had some concerns,” Grier said. “He’s a special talent on the ice, there’s no doubt about that. Super skilled, can do things a lot of other players can’t. But were some things that we weren’t completely satisfied with to be able to take someone with a fourth overall pick.”
Instead, it seemed like Smith was the Sharks’ guy all along at No. 4.
“We’re really happy with Will,” Grier said. “We were hoping he would be there when he picked and he was, so, as a staff, we couldn’t be happier.”
“I can’t wait to go to development camp,” Smith said of the July 4-6 camp at Sharks Ice. “I already met a legend in Patrick Marleau.”
The No. 4 pick represented the Sharks’ highest draft choice since 1998 when the team took defenseman Brad Stuart third overall. San Jose as a franchise has only drafted in the top 5 five other times, also taking Pat Falloon second overall in 1991, Mike Rathje third in 1992, Andrei Zyuzin second in 1996 and Patrick Marleau second in 1997.
The Sharks wound up in this draft position after finishing 29th in the NHL’s overall standings with a 22-44-16 record for a .366 points percentage that ranked as the fourth-worst in the 31-season history of the franchise.
The Sharks in May had a 9.5 percent chance of winning the lottery and earning the right to select Bedard. Instead, the Sharks stayed put, something Grier was thankful for last month considering there was also the possibility of them falling back to fifth or sixth overall.
“We’re excited that we’re going to get a good player here at four,” Grier said at the time.
Source: The Mercury News
