Oh wow, yeah, you're not lying when you say you're not a Sharks fan, are you? :P But thank you for your interest - we're so often the plain bridesmaid of the NHL - perennially solid and showing up to the playoffs but shown up by the flashier and prettier girls at the party and ignored in their favor.

But yeah, I can promise you that this is not how it's going to shake down next year - for one thing, I'm pretty sure the Sharks won't be taking to the ice without that missing fourth line winger or defenseman, you know?

1) Sorensen already has a contract extension until 21-22 at 1.5 so he definitely doesn't get a raise.

2) M. Karlsson and Dillon aren't injured (knock wood, holy ****) so there's no way they'd be LTIR

3) Of the two Defensemen we've got who are UFA at the end of the season, we're waaaay more likely to keep Heed than Ryan, but either way there's not likely going to be a jump from 650k to 2m in salary. I could see Heed getting 1.5 though - he's been a godsend since E. Karlsson went out in January. Thus far though, Ryan isn't meshing with our blue line (a worrying issue, no lie) and I'd be a bit surprised to see him back in teal next year. A D who will be back, god and knee surgery willing, is Radim Šimek at 675k for anther 2 years.

4) I would be sincerely stunned to see either Chmelevski or Merkley playing on the Sharks next year. It's much, much more likely that Merkley stays at the Juniors level for another season and then either does a year with the Barracuda or makes the jump up - it'll depend on how much better his defensive game gets. As for Chmelevski - he's great, don't get me wrong, but the Sharks have around four or five forwards on the Barracuda who are much much much more likely to be moving up after training camp than he is at this point. (As a general rule, the Sharks tend to not jump players up from Juniors to the NHL.)

5) If EK65 stays, someone is going to have to go - I'm guessing Braun, Melker Karlsson, Donskoi, Goodrow, or some combination thereof, though it's not outside the realm of possibility that Labanc would be signed then traded if Doug Wilson thought he could get a good deal on him.

6) Joe Thornton will very likely be back next season. He's playing remarkably well right now centering the third line, is the beating heart of the team and an amazing presence in the room with an undeniable impact on the team culture. Not to mention, the man bleeds teal and is still just as in love with the game as he was when he was drafted in '97. If his knees old out, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him on the ice again over the next 2 years.

7) At this point in time, I don't see EK65 on the Sharks roster next year, but I do hope I'm wrong. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him with the Islanders to be honest - they young, moving along with the rebuild, performing above expectations, and with Tavares gone they have a lot more cap space than a lot of the teams out there.

But TL;DR - our cap space is ****ed, Doug Wilson is going to need to work some magic to get this mess sorted out. Fortunately, he's good at that.

Just wanted to say I think the “annual playoff carpet” award goes to Minnesota

So utilitarian, overlooked, a little bit boring, but always there? That's actually pretty fair.

(speaking of the playoffs, I'm hopeful that we'll be seeing each others teams there I think that'd be a fantastic series!)