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 what they hope will someday be the franchise’s future No. 1 centerman.
Smith, 18, is considered a game-breaking type of centerman 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 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 announcement at Bridgestone Arena.
While Smith, who is listed at 6-foot-0 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.
“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 met with Smith at the NHL combine earlier this month, sitting down to have dinner with him, and came away impressed on a personal level and excited about his potential.
“Will is a dynamic offensive player with a high-end hockey mind and vision,” Sharks general manager Mike Grier said Tuesday. “He thinks the game at a real high level and he sees plays happen before they happen. He’s got really great offensive instincts and anticipation. He makes players around him better and he can score, so he’s got a lot of things you’re looking for.
“He’s kind of a quiet kid, but he’s got kind of that competitive fire burning in him to be the best every day in practice, in games. There’s a lot to like with him and with Fantilli and Leo as well.”
The Sharks also have the No. 26 overall pick in the first round, which they acquired from New Jersey as part of the Feb. 16 trade that sent Timo Meier to the Devils.
The No. 4 overall 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. “Obviously you kind of hope that you maybe get some luck and things go your way. But we didn’t drop, which I think we’re all really happy about, and the opportunity to draft a really good player at four.”
Grier hinted in an interview earlier this month that the Sharks might be open to moving the No. 4 pick, but said Tuesday that trading back was unlikely “unless we were completely overwhelmed, so we’ll probably stay there.
“We’ve looked at some scenarios to move up, and if that were to happen, it will probably be something that happened on draft day. But we’ve looked at all the scenarios, we’ll stay at four and if there was an opportunity to move up. It’s something we’ve discussed and looked at, but it’s not an easy thing to do.”
