Timo Meier
This choice is a bit of an obvious one however the excitement around Timo Meier’s potential is hard to ignore. The 22-year-old power-forward had a bit of breakout season in 2018 – 2019 scoring 30 goals in his 78 games played last season.
Meier clocked big minutes at 5v5 playing with Logan Couture for a major chunk of the campaign. Regardless of who was on the right side of the duo they remained extremely effective at even strength, often times lining up against an opposing teams best forward group.
The reason Timo Meier is due for a breakout season is because we simply haven’t seen him be able to play to play at his full potential in all situations. Now with the loss of Joe Pavelski, Meier has a chance to get a significant bump in ice-time on special teams.
The Swiss born winger put up a career high 66 points with a (0.85) PPG pace in 2018 – 2019 scoring 55 of his total points at even strength. Adding this to the fact that Timo ranked 6th on Team Teal among all forwards in overall ice-time on the power-play, it’s not hard to imagine a dynamic goal scorer like Meier finding a way to help supplement the loss of Pavelski’s production on the 1st unit.
All this being said Timo in 2019 – 2020 definitely has point per game potential and is going to get relied on heavily for offensive production next season. Especially considering the Sharks didn’t really add any help up front via free agency. It’ll be interesting to see if Meier can make that next step and by years end be considered one of the elite goal scorers in the NHL.
Sharks fans have every right to worry and question whether this team can somehow replace the departure of one of the most iconic players in team history. Be that as it may San Jose has game-breaking talent and is only a few breakout seasons away from maintaining the historic level of production that they put up just one season ago.