After weeks of debate and endless Armchair GM’s on CapFriendly, despite their best efforts, the Sharks failed to sign John Tavares. The talented center opted instead to sign a seven-year, $77 million contract with his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs and to accomplish a childhood dream.

First of all, this should not be considered a failure on Doug Wilson’s part. In his defense, he did everything he could to lure Tavares to Silicon Valley. By trading Mikkel Boedker and buying out Paul Martin, he gave the Sharks as much financial flexibility to essentially hand Tavares a blank check. The fact that Hasso Plattner, the rarely-seen owner of the Sharks, was present at the team’s pitch to Tavares shows how much effort the Sharks put into signing Tavares. Some reports even placed the Sharks’ offer at $13 million over seven years, by far the highest bid for Tavares’ services.

Told the Sharks ended up offering more than $13M per season for Tavares. The Islanders upped their offer from $11M per to $11.25M. — David Pagnotta (@TheFourthPeriod) July 1, 2018

But, as it turns out, you can’t put a price tag on returning home and playing for your favorite team growing up.

Instead of reflecting on how the Sharks once again fell short, it’s time to figure out what is the next step for this team.

First of all, it’s important to remember that this team is still a pretty good team without Tavares. This is a team that finished last season with 100 points despite losing top center Joe Thornton to another knee injury for most of the second half of the season. This is also a team had some pretty rough puck luck at 5v5 as well (20th in Sh% and 24th in PDO) and finished 18th in goals scored at 5v5 despite being sixth in xGF.

Offensively, they pack some punch. Logan Couture, who just signed an eight-year, $64 million contract extension today, leads the group, but Joe Pavelski, Evander Kane, Timo Meier, Tomas Hertl, and Joe Thornton (assuming he re-signs, which is almost a sure thing) are all solid offensive weapons. Brent Burns and Marc-Edouard Vlasic are also weapons from the blueline. Additionally, Chris Tierney, Joonas Donskoi, and Kevin Labanc are decent depth options as well. This is a group that will likely improve from their struggles for much of the year last season.

Defensively, it’s a mixed bag. Marc-Edouard Vlasic is one of the most unheralded shutdown defensemen in the league, and while his age is starting to slow him down a bit, he is still by far and away the Sharks’ best defenseman. He and Justin Braun will still likely be trusted with tough minutes against the opposition’s best forwards.

But after that, things get a bit iffy. Brent Burns is an offensive dynamo, but his struggles in his own end are hard to ignore. Joakim Ryan performed admirably for a rookie last season in a tough situation, but he is defensively steady, a good skater, and can play well at an NHL level. Brenden Dillon had a decent year last year as well, but he’s best suited for bottom-pairing minutes.

Supposedly, the Sharks are still in talks with now-UFA Dylan DeMelo. DeMelo, who had three goals and 29 assists last season, is another decent option on the bottom pairing. And even if the Sharks don’t end up re-signing DeMelo, Tim Heed is an interesting option to fill in because of his offensive potential.

Martin Jones is a mixed bag during the regular season, especially at 5v5 (.915 Sv%, .919 xSV%, and -5.25 GSAA), but when he is on, he can be one of the best goaltenders in the league. And come playoff time, few goalies show up in big moments like Martin Jones. Aaron Dell is also a decent backup goalie, though his second season with the Sharks wasn’t as successful as his first.

The point is, as it currently stands, the Sharks should have a playoff team on their hands. Remember that the Sharks gave the Vegas Golden Knights their most difficult series before losing to the Washington Capitals in the Stanley Cup Finals. If Marc-Andre Fleury doesn’t rob Logan Couture in overtime of Game 3, that series might have ended differently. And while the Coyotes and Flames will likely be better next season, there is no reason to believe that the Sharks can’t at least make the playoffs with the current roster as is.

As of right now, the Sharks are a decent team that is likely a high-end addition away from putting them into contender status.

But what now?

The Sharks currently sit with 19 players signed and almost $18.5 million in cap space. They still need to sign Chris Tierney, Tomas Hertl, and most likely, Joe Thornton. That will probably eat up about $9 million, leaving the Sharks with roughly $9.5 million. After today’s free agency frenzy, there really aren’t any high-end free agents that would put the Sharks over the top. James Neal and Patrick Maroon are probably the two best free agents left on the board, but they aren’t the kind of player that the Sharks are looking for.

After failing to sign Tavares, their best option to add more high-end talent is via trade, and that’s where things get tricky. With their first-round pick this year belonging to the Buffalo Sabres, that’s one more asset that they cannot trade, though they do have two second-round picks via the Mike Hoffman trade. And with Ryan O’Reilly just being traded to the St. Louis Blues, barring anything completely off the board, any offensive help via trade is likely going to have to come on the wings.

On the TSN Trade Bait Board, the top five wingers are Jeff Skinner, Max Pacioretty, Jason Zucker, and Artemi Panarin, and Phil Kessel. Out of those five, the Sharks are likely to target Skinner, Pacioretty, or Zucker. I just don’t buy the Blue Jackets shopping Panarin as they’re trying to contend, and the same goes for the Penguins with Kessel. Pure speculation of course, but that’s what it looks like. Zucker doesn’t look like the kind of player that the Sharks are considering, either.

The Sharks were rumored to have acquired Pacioretty at the draft, but it later turned out that while the two sides discussed a deal, talks broke down and no such deal was made.

Here’s what I know about what happened today: the #SJSharks were talking to the Habs about Max Pacioretty as recently as yesterday before talks broke down. They may have revisited today, but I can’t confirm that. Regardless, sounds like it’s all off…at least for now — Kevin Kurz (@KKurzNHL) June 24, 2018

Pacioretty would make sense for both sides. “Patches” is coming off one of the worst seasons in his career, dipping from 67 points to just 37 in a season that was a disaster for nearly everyone in Montreal. Pacioretty has always been a talented goal-scorer, but his goal totals plummeted from 35 goals in 2016-17 to only 17 in 2017-18. With one year left on his contract, Pacioretty could be looking for a fresh start in one of the best spots in the league to do so while the Canadiens move on in a new direction.

Skinner is another intriguing option for the Sharks. Sharks fans will remember Skinner for winning the Calder Trophy in 2011 over Logan Couture, but Skinner is still quite the talented forward. His issues with concussions is a huge red flag, but when healthy, he’s a solid top-six option. And with the Hurricanes looking to move on from their veterans and with a market that has cooled with Tavares, Paul Stastny, Ilya Kovalchuk, and James van Riemsdyk off the board, the Sharks might be able to acquire Skinner for a lower price than it was at, say, the draft a couple weeks ago.

These are also just players that are speculated to be on the trading block, and Doug Wilson does have the tendency to go off the board when he makes big moves. Brent Burns and Martin Havlat were surprising acquisitions in the summer of 2011. Same goes for Jannik Hansen at the deadline in 2017, Dan Boyle in 2008, and arguably Evander Kane at the trade deadline this past season.

Considering the current state of the prospect pipeline and the construction of the roster, Doug Wilson is going to have to make some difficult, uncomfortable decisions. This nucleus of Couture, Pavelski, Vlasic, Burns, Kane, and Jones is built to win now. But it also needs one more key piece. The Sharks are going to have to give up assets to find the right piece or pieces that might just finally put them over the edge.

Doug Wilson realizes that he does need one more big fish to fully flesh out this Sharks lineup. With the cap space he currently wields, he has more than enough room to make it happen without having to ship out players purely for cap purposes. This team is fully in win-now mode; Wilson wouldn’t have offered Tavares an unbelievable $13 million a year if he didn’t think so.

Between the Couture extension, #TavaresWatch, and the Evander Kane extension, Doug Wilson is being aggressive in upgrading this team. And who knows, maybe he can swing an epic Erik Karlsson trade (which we’ll save for another time) and surprise the hockey world. Hold on tight, because Doug Wilson’s wild ride isn’t anywhere close to being over.

All advanced statistics, unless otherwise noted, are courtesy of Corsica.hockey

As the Sharks continue to make moves, be sure to check The Shark Spot for further news and updates. If you want Sharks news at your fingertips, be sure to follow @TheSharkSpot on Twitter.

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