Regarding Cap Space, the Sharks have one of the cleanest cap sheets in the entire league. Their longest commitment at this current time is Tyler Toffoli, who has 3 years remaining at a 6-million-dollar cap hit. With the Cap rising, the Sharks have a wide-open slate for Grier to construct the team in his image. And with 41 million in space to play with this offseason and no significant pending free agents to re-up, the Sharks will have to spend some money this offseason just to hit the floor.
The Forwards
The Sharks don't have many big forward contracts beyond this season outside of Toffoli; Goodrow has 2 years remaining at a 3.6 million dollar cap hit, and Celebrini and Will Smith have two more years on ELCs. Logan Couture has two more years at 8 million but could easily be placed on LTIR if that space is needed. Regarding future long-term commitments, a good chunk of cap space will likely need to be allocated to Celebrini, Smith, and Eklund. Eklund is eligible for an extension this offseason, and it sounds like the Sharks are also interested in getting something done. Smith and Celebrini will be extension-eligible next offseason; while it's unclear what their extensions will look like, Celebrini will likely set the bar on his contract for rookies coming off of their ELC in addition to the Sharks' future cap structure.
The Defenseman
The Sharks don’t have any commitments on the backend beyond next season, but they only have two defensemen looking for a new deal this offseason; expect the team to let Jan Rutta walk in free agency and qualify Jack Thompson. If the Sharks are going to improve their defense, which has been a significant weakness, it likely means they are going to need to move out a defenseman, as they currently have five defensemen under contract who played exclusively in the NHL last season, not including Shakir Muhkamadulin and potentially Sam Dickinson who look to factor into next years defense group. Expect the Sharks to look to revamp their defense core next offseason when they have a better idea of what they have in their young blueliners and guys like Ferraro, Liljegren, and Vlasic off the books.
The Goaltenders
Currently, Yaroslav Askarov is the only goaltender under contract for the Sharks, who will begin a two-year extension at 2 million AAV next season. The Sharks will need to add another goaltender with NHL experience. They could look to retain young netminders Georgi Romonov and Gabriel Carrier, who had strong showings down the stretch, to man the crease for the Barracuda. They still have Martin Jones’s Buyout on the books for another 2 seasons at a 1.6 cap hit. The Sharks hope Askarov is the future of the crease, so expect them to give him every opportunity to prove he is the guy before adding a significant commitment in net.
Retention
The Sharks will finally have a retention spot free, with Brent Burns coming off the books. Erik Karlsson will still be on the books for two more seasons at 1.5 AAV, while Tomas Hertl has 5 years of retention left at 1.3 AAV. Still, with one more slot to use and no horrible long-term deals left to move, the Sharks can utilize a retention slot on a rental, which was impossible this past season.
Overall, the Sharks are in excellent long-term shape when it comes to the cap sheet, a nice change of pace from the end of the Doug Wilson era when the Sharks looked to be in cap purgatory. Even with extensions down the line to the young core and future top draft picks, with the rising cap, the Sharks can certainly afford to make a big splash at some point down the line. The question is more so when rather than if, and it will be interesting to see when Grier finally decides to pull the trigger or if they use the excess space to add more picks for taking on bad contracts. The ladder is likely this offseason, but as the kids develop, we could see the Sharks kick things into gear as soon as next offseason.