Pashelka on the Sharks: Why giving Meier $70 million would have been a disaster for San Jose

Everything has worked out well for New Jersey Devils forward Timo Meier, just like San Jose Sharks coach David Quinn knew it would.

Four months after Meier was traded by the Sharks to the Devils, the Swiss-born winger signed an eight-year, $70.4 million contract with New Jersey, making him the team’s highest-paid forward after he registered a 40-goal season.

“It’s a hard situation for people,” Quinn said Friday of players like Meier, who constantly hear their names in trade rumors. “But as I used to joke, ‘I don’t feel too sorry for you. You’re going to make about $90 million, so I’ll save the hankies for later.’”

Looking back, if the Sharks had given Meier that same contract, it would have been a disaster.

The Sharks spun their wheels and missed the playoffs for three straight seasons from 2019 to 2022 even with Tomas Hertl, Logan Couture, Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson, and Meier on the roster. Keeping the band together probably would have meant more of the same, with no long-term plan for improvement.

The Sharks never made a contract offer to Meier, and soon after Meier was traded, it became clear to Karlsson that the Sharks were headed for a major rebuild, one that he wanted no part of.

“You trade a guy like Timo, I don’t think that shows that this is going to be a quick turnaround,” Karlsson said a day after Meier was shipped to the Devils. “It’s unfortunate, but I understand it. I’ve been around the game long enough to understand what needs to be done from an organizational perspective.

“It just sucks that I happen to be where I’m at, at this stage of my career.”

Karlsson was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins in August in a move that brought back a conditional first-round pick and freed up tens of millions in cap space in two years. The three-team trade, which also brought Mikael Granlund, Mike Hoffman, and Jan Rutta to San Jose, was criticized, with some feeling the Sharks didn’t get enough in return for Karlsson, who had just won his third Norris Trophy.

Grier also caught some flak for the Meier trade, a swap involving nine players and four draft picks, with some feeling the return was too light.

But given the chance, the Sharks would probably do that deal again.

Two of the players acquired, forward Fabian Zetterlund and defenseman Nikita Okhotiuk, have become mainstays in the Sharks’ lineup and are expected to be on the ice tonight when San Jose faces New Jersey at the Prudential Center. A third player, one with arguably the biggest upside, defenseman Shakir Mukhamadullin, is gaining experience in North American professional hockey with the Barracuda.

The Sharks also received the Devils’ 2023 first-round pick, which became center Quentin Musty, and a conditional 2024 second-round selection that will become a first-rounder if New Jersey makes the playoffs and reaches Eastern Conference finals this season.

Those are all key pieces to have as Grier and the Sharks try to lay the foundation for the next generation of Sharks hockey.

Zetterlund is 24, is tied for the team lead with six goals, and is under team control for a few more years. It’s not hard to envision Okhotiuk, who turns 24 on Monday, and Mukhamadullin, who turns 22 in January, being key parts of the Sharks’ defense corps down the line.

Of course, none of those players have the star power of Meier, who was 30th in the NHL with 165 goals since the start of the 2017-2018 season before Friday’s games. Meier (lower body) is considered questionable to play Friday against his former team.

So that will be the Sharks’ next challenge, finding a goal-scoring winger of Meier’s ilk. As it stands, that player doesn’t exist on the Sharks or the Barracuda’s roster. Could Musty or Will Smith, or whoever the Sharks take in next year’s draft, fill those shoes? Time will tell.

But we know this: If winning a Stanley Cup is the goal, then keeping Meier, now 27, wouldn’t have worked out for the Sharks in the short term or probably the long run. As talented as he is, Meier is not David Pastrnak or Mikko Rantanen. The Sharks saw an opportunity to trade a star on an expiring contract in his prime, recoup some assets, and start looking toward the future.

It was a necessary move, one that looks better now than it did in February, for all involved.

“I think our organization is doing a really good job here identifying not only the player we need, but also the type of player we need and the personality that we need to have success,” Quinn said. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in Mike and our scouts and the way we go about our business, so I anticipate that we’ll find another Timo Meier somewhere along the way.”