Takeaways from Joe Will's comments on Sharks' season, future

• Editor's note: Sheng Peng will be a regular contributor to NBC Sports California's Sharks coverage for the 2021-22 season. You can read more of his coverage on San Jose Hockey Now, listen to him on the San Jose Hockey Now Podcast, and follow him on Twitter at @Sheng_Peng.

Sharks players held their exit interviews on Saturday, and head coach Bob Boughner and interim general manager Joe Will held court today.

Will talked to us for about an hour and touched on every Sharks topic in the water, from Boughner’s future to the new GM search to a possible Marc-Edouard Vlasic buyout to a potential Brent Burns trade to Evander Kane and even what San Jose might do in terms of adding to their roster this offseason.

Bob Boughner

Will: “Much like the players, he did a really admirable job in working hard and culturally maintaining the room that we had. He was open to playing all young players. He was very involved in that and we collaborated, and that part worked well.”

Takeaway: Sharks fans have criticized Boughner for how he’s used young players this year, with some suggesting that the head coach is biased against using them. I’m not going to debate the finer points here, but it’s worth noting that the organization doesn’t appear to see it that way.

Will: “We don't want to limit ourselves by putting a date on anything. Having said that, the league year kind of starts when free agency starts, when the playoffs are over, you have the draft and free agency. So free agency is what, July 13? 

“That's when you kind of start everything for next year. Ideally, would you like to have [a coaching staff] in place prior to the draft and free agency? You would. As long as you're comfortable with who's there and that's where it plays. It's always the earlier the better, but provided the person's there that you want.” 

Takeaway: Could the July 13 start of free agency date be a sort of drop-dead date to make a decision on Boughner’s future as head coach? And could that date also play a part in when the Sharks hire their new GM? In theory, it’s tough to ask a new GM to come in without the immediate power to hire or fire their own coach.

You can force the new GM and Boughner into a shotgun marriage, but that puts both into a difficult position. Boughner is believed to have a year left in his contract, but that’s a lame duck year and without the obvious support of the new GM.

Meanwhile, the new GM is being tasked with winning now, but with a coach that they may or may not believe in. So, you’re being forced into a win-now situation without all your bullets. It can happen, but that doesn’t seem like an ideal position for anybody.

Search for GM

Will: “We're narrowing down from a wide list. 

“It's pretty wide, and then you get down to the first list of candidates that you want to basically formally interview, and we're somewhere kind of between that. 

“We've already talked about some people on the first list and that's where we're at.”

Takeaway: Pierre LeBrun has reported that the Sharks’ list has 25 GM candidates, but they should pare down from there. I doubt they will formally interview 25 candidates.

Will: “We're going to have people with all kinds of levels of experience, as Jonathan [Becher] said. 

“We're going to have real people that have been GMs before and have a lot of tenure, and you can almost just kind of plug and play them into a role and they've kind of done that. There's going to be others that are very promising, but their experience is a lot less, and I think it's all good. 

“Even the backgrounds where they come from. Some are going to be experts in salary cap and contracts, other ones will be experts at scouting and development, other ones will be players that are just really good hockey minds, similar to Doug. Just a really good hockey mind that can get in with players and coaches and dig right in right at the start and people can kind of do the other roles. 

“We’re open to anything, and excited about that actually, of the opportunity. 

“It's what you do in the aggregate. Your staff. If you get a cap and contract person, like we had said before, we'll accentuate that with people in other areas. Getting back to the fit. The fit is a criteria. We're not trying to keep a narrow path for somebody to come in and [tell them] this is exactly what we want you to do, but all we're saying is that we want to win. 

“We want to win here. That's it. There could be a lot of different visions on how to do that. We want somebody that will recognize that there's some good things going on, and some people that recognize that you know what, these are some things that we need to pick up and have some ideas for doing that. 

“The one thing I don't think we're looking at is like a scorched earth type scenario. To say we're just going to kind of start over in that regard.”

Takeaway: Once again, there won’t be a re-build. This jibes with what SJHN reported recently and throughout this process.

Marc-Edouard Vlasic

Will: “I think we could bring any idea to the forefront with [the knowledge that] this is the intended consequence of what we're doing. If it means that there's going to be a player move, and we're gonna get x and y from moving this player, we also could trade. We have a history of always looking at trades. 

“In the [Martin] Jones case, there was a buyout, maybe for some room. There's all kinds of different ways of doing it, and we do look at that constantly.”

Takeaway: That sounds like the Sharks aren’t ruling out using the buyout mechanism to manufacture cap space. And their top buyout candidate is Marc-Edouard Vlasic. But…

Will: “I'm very bullish on Marc-Edouard.

“I'm a big believer in him. I'm not gonna get into anything about his future with that except to say that I'm a big believer in him. 

“If you're just talking about the use of buyouts, we always do look at it, but you'll look at our history, we haven't done that all that much. We did that with Martin Jones and that's kind of a last option for us. We hope to get the best out of people and go from there.”

Takeaway: How can Will be bullish about the 35-year-old Vlasic, who’s been used as a bottom-pairing defenseman on a below-average Sharks squad for two straight seasons?

Will: “It starts with his enthusiasm. I had a great meeting with him. He's excited about playing. 

“He's got a nice contract. He's accomplished a lot in his career. There are certain guys that you can tell they're just down the path and happy to be here. He wants to be excellent. He's excited about training. He's excited about coming back. 

“I felt he played very well in the second half, and we saw a better second half. I had a really good meeting with him. So just for that, the eye test and the second half. That's what I based it on.”

Takeaway: I do agree with Will that Vlasic’s play improved as the season went on and have full confidence, if bought out, that the ex-Olympian can help even a contending team in a bottom-pairing role.

That said, after the All-Star break, Vlasic’s TOI per game was less than Burns, Erik Karlsson, Mario Ferraro, Jake Middleton, Jaycob Megna, Nicolas Meloche and even Ryan Merkley. So basically, every Sharks defenseman played more than Vlasic.

If Boughner is as bullish about Vlasic as Will is, well, we’re not seeing it. 

Alexander Barabanov and Jaycob Megna

Will: “I never really go into the meat of negotiations or anything like that, but I've talked to both parties…And on our part, we would like to do something [to keep both UFAs].”

Takeaway: I would expect both UFAs back with the Sharks. For actually similar reasons -- Barabanov and Megna don’t have a lot of NHL experience -- both should come back to San Jose at a reasonable rate.

Where will Sharks add?

Will: “I'm really happy that we went out and acquired Kaapo [Kahkonen]. It really helped our depth in that area tremendously. So, I feel a lot better with our goaltending this year. I had felt we'd made an upgrade anyway over the previous year, so we're moving in a good direction there.

“With our [defense], I think as I had mentioned before, the November COVID surge that we had, when we had the whole group of guys out and that's what we plugged in Megna, [Nicolas] Meloche, [Ryan] Merkley, we even had [Santeri] Hatakka in some games, [Artemi Kniazev] even had a game this year. We found out that we have some pretty good depth at D.

“Forward I think is where the focus goes on externally looking and getting a few players that can produce and address some depth issues. That’s where a lot of our young players are as well. A lot of the young players we're talking about that we haven't seen yet, most of them are forwards. That's the area I think you'll see the biggest change with.”

Takeaway: There’s an argument that the Sharks can use another top-four defenseman. They start with Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson, and Mario Ferraro, and while all those blueliners have their flaws and none might be considered true top-pairing guys right now, they’re still top-four quality.

Jake Middleton was a candidate to round out that top four but he’s gone, leaving the competition for No. 4 defenseman on this team wide-open. Will it be Nikolai Knyzhov, out all season? Is there any hope that Vlasic can play up again? Is there another internal solution?

But Will’s comments don’t point toward adding to the defense as a priority area for the Sharks.

Trading Brent Burns?

Will: “Our desire is to make the playoffs. Not just desire, our mandate is to do that. Players have choices and players have thoughts and prerogatives on where they are in their career…I think we have a group that believes in the path that we're going and sticking with it.”

Takeaway: There were rumblings last summer that Brent Burns could be open to a trade if it was to a contender. Burns didn’t necessarily quell that speculation in his exit interview, as opposed to say, Logan Couture, who shut down that question. This is something, I think, to watch this summer.

Adin Hill’s health?

Will: “I trust that we'll get to a resolution for that in the summer. To define it, it's just more of a nagging injury than it is anything really serious to worry about that goes long term or anything like that. It's just a nagging, puzzling type of thing. 

“He's seen a lot of different specialists. He had an injection last week, and these things that we're just trying. Various things that a lot of times, it's combination of rest, seeing other specialists, getting an injection, trying a different, maybe alternative type treatment. That's where we're going, and a lot of times it's trial and error and you hit the one that works and there you go. 

“It's been frustrating for him. It's been frustrating for us in that regard, but it happens occasionally, but it's nothing that we have really long-term concerns about or that it's a terrible health situation.”

Takeaway: The word “puzzling” is a concern. But Will doesn’t seem to believe that this injury will affect Hill into next year. We’ll see.

A long-term Hill injury could shape San Jose’s goaltending picture between Kahkonen and Hill and James Reimer quickly.

William Eklund

Will: “When you talk about analytics and data, we saw some positive things in what he accomplished over there this year. 

“The team wasn’t very good, Djurgardens struggled, and that really affected him, but he was played in a lot of important situations. That's what we liked. It's one of the things we liked when we drafted him that he can be a player to play defensively and also an o-zone guy, a first-minute, last-minute, all-situation type guy and that's the things that we saw from him. 

“They were kind of a one-line team and it was some older, older players on there. So offensively he wasn't very involved in things. When you saw the guys that he played with, they weren't offensive-driving guys. 

“So within there, we had to look and see what he had, were we satisfied with that? We absolutely were. 

“When you look at this league when we made that decision, I think there was one 18-year-old that played [and stayed in the NHL], and it was [Cole] Sillinger in Columbus. 

“I'm glad he went back, I'm glad he got this year under his belt, but I think he'll come in and grab the experience he had in his nine games last year and the experience with Djurgardens and be a better player for it.”

Takeaway: The Sharks better hope so. 

The SHL counting stats weren’t pretty for Eklund, but corroborating what Will said here, the youngster’s analytics that I’ve seen were better than I expected.

San Jose will almost certainly need Eklund, in his ELC, to handsomely outperform his AAV to compensate for the less efficient contracts on the roster. 

Timo Meier

Will: “I have a good relationship with his agent. I have a good relationship with Timo. No problem talking about things [like an extension for Meier]. 

“It's not going to be easy. It's not going to be quick, but I expect that we'll have conversations on and off throughout the year. Whether they're formal or informal, that's just kind of how we do things. We'll start dipping our toe into the water here and looking at options and things like that, too.”

Takeaway: Extending Timo Meier appears to be the Sharks’ next big contract question.

He’ll need to repeat his breakout 2021-22 campaign. If he shows signs of that early next year, the pending RFA will have a ton of leverage. An annual salary of $9 million could be a relative bargain.

Logan Couture

Will: “I think he's been a great captain. Nobody cares more than Logan. If you look back at the playoffs in the past decade in the National Hockey League, Logan Couture would be a top-10 forward for me in what he's accomplished in the playoffs and what he brings. That tells me that he steps up in the best games. 

“He's a quieter leader because he's very professional. It's more by his actions, by the standards he has. He's a tremendous leader and we're lucky to have him.”

Takeaway: If you miss the playoffs for three straight years, it reasonable to question the team’s leadership, but Will (and read the Sharks organization) seems pleased with his captain.

Kevin Labanc

Will: “I think he can play as a top-six player at times. If you're a well-stocked championship team, he's somewhere in the top nine. He's a scorer and he's creative. 

“I think he can be an offensive Swiss Army knife for us and play in a lot of different situations and just help our collective offense.”

Takeaway: That sounds about right for Labanc. It sounds like Will is ready to give Labanc another chance to help the Sharks' offense next year.

Not that he has a choice: Labanc has two years left at $4.725 million AAV. That’s not tradeable right now.

Evander Kane

Will: “Well, we determined, when we made the call [to not keep Kane with the Sharks], that it was a net positive. We weren't surprised that he went out and scored [with the Oilers]. He did that with us. He's a good hockey player, an exceptional hockey player. 

“We're not surprised that he went out and performed elsewhere…in our minds, we looked at that as positive to help out our locker room and we don't have any regrets on that.”

Takeaway: It still might be a while until we learn everything about why the Sharks’ locker room exiled Kane, but you have to think there could still be more significant revelations on the way. It had to be pretty serious for even a goal-starved front office to tell a guaranteed 30-goal guy to take a hike.  

Will, by the way, couldn’t share any timetable on when the Kane grievance would be resolved, except that it would be “tied to this league year, so we'll be able to operate and at some point have an indication.” So before free agency, at latest.

Front office additions?

Will: “We're not missing out on anything, but could we use a little help in some areas? Absolutely. And that's one of the things that we've talked about that we'll address in this process.”

Takeaway: SJHN doesn’t think the Sharks will be pursuing a VP/GM situation a la Jeff Gorton/Kent Hughes in Montreal. So we might be talking, besides a new GM, adding another director or assistant general manager to the fold.

RELATED: Vlasic remains defiant, 'not worried' about Sharks buyout

Roy Sommer

Will: “At times, they didn't have an awful lot of help as far as the players that they had. Taking away Jaycob Megna and without Jake Middleton and Meloche and different standard-bearing players there, they could have used a few more vets in there. We yanked an awful lot of players up. That's what we're supposed to do. We'll never apologize for that, but he ended up with a lot of ECHL players in there and we really had to get deep into goaltending and some different things like that. 

“Like everything else, like every member of this organization, the review is on. Like it should be, we all want to get back to the playoffs and we all want to be part of a plan that's gonna get us there.”

Takeaway: A new GM could certainly bring changes in any area of the organization, including Sommer, who’s helmed San Jose’s AHL team since 1998. I believe more quality players have developed under him, even in recent years, than he’s been given credit for. But who knows how a new GM will see the organizational icon.