In a season to forget for the San Jose Sharks franchise, the California-based club found a silver lining on Thursday, April 4, as they snatched the consensus best-available undrafted free agent from the paws of all other NHL organizations.
Sharks’ General Manager Mike Grier announced on Thursday that the Sharks have signed forward Collin Graf to a standard, entry-level contract. Graf will earn $3.8 million through three seasons starting to count now, according to CapFriendly.
Collin Graf #SJSharks
3 Year Entry Level Contract
$941,667 cap hit / $1,283,333 AAV
Breakdown:
2023-24: $830k base + $95k SB + $25k PB
2024-25: $855k base + $95k SB + $500k schedule A bonuses
2025-26: $855k base + $95k SB + $500k schedule A bonuses
The Sharks will “burn the first year of the free agent’s contract and Graf will report immediately to San Jose,” according to a report published on Thursday, April 4, by Michael Russo and Corey Pronman of The Athletic.
Graf is expected to make his NHL debut with the Sharks during the next few days and through the final two weeks of regular-season play, so he will be consuming one year of his deal even if he only plays a few games or just a single one.
“Graf’s priority,” according to The Athletic, was to “go to a team he could see himself playing for long-term, not just five or six games down the stretch.”
Per The Athletic’s report, Graf and his agent Jerry Buckley “went through every finalist with a fine-tooth comb to review depth charts, prospect pools, draft picks, coaching styles, management, and which teams may have a dearth of right-shot forwards.”
The Sharks are the worst team in the NHL this season with a meager 42 points through 75 games played and a 17-50-8 record. San Jose has the best odds at landing the No. 1 pick in the upcoming draft with a 25.5 percent chance of getting the first-overall selection in the draft lottery next month, per Tankathon.
Collin Graf Was the Best NCAA Free Agent Available
Graf will enter the NHL after having an extraordinary collegiate career. He spent a single year at Union College before moving to D-I hockey. Once there, Graf scored 22 points in 37 games in his freshman year, although he didn’t appear in the postseason.
Following that first year in college, Graf transferred to Quinnipiac in the summer of 2022, where he’s spent the remainder of his NCAA career. He had an impressive 21-goal, 59-point season in 41 games played last year, and this season he’s posted an equally great 22 goals and 49 points in 34 games.
Graf, born in September 2002, is still only 21 years old. He went undrafted multiple times, the last one in 2023 in his third and final draft-eligible season.
“One reason scouts say he wasn’t drafted in the mid to late rounds was his size,” The Athletic wrote in their story. “As a 17-year-old, Graf was 5-foot-8 and 145 pounds. Now he’s 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds.”
According to a league source quoted in the original article published by The Athletic, Graf “always had the skill and hockey sense, but people didn’t draft him because he was undersized.”
The source made it sound like scouts and other staffers had a preconceived opinion of Graf, and remained locked into it leading to not drafting him.
“[League people] had already made that book on him that, ‘He’s too small, he’s too small,'” the league source told The Athletic.
San Jose Has Never Made a No. 1 Overall Draft Pick
While it is true that San Jose isn’t the longest-tenured NHL franchise, the Sharks have never had the privilege of landing atop the draft pecking order as they have never won the lottery.
San Jose entered the league in the 1991 expansion and through their first 32 seasons the highest pick they ever made was No. 2, which has happened three times in franchise history. The Sharks have their best-ever chance at landing the No. 1 pick this summer, which will be a first in their not-so-short history.
Pat Falloon in 1991, Andrei Zyuzin in 1996, and Patrick Marleau in 1997 are the three former No. 2 picks made by the Sharks since they entered the NHL more than 30 years ago.
For now, however, landing Graft must feel good enough. According to The Athletic, Graf “was pursued by roughly 25 NHL teams.”
Not only that, but the original report mentions a “final list” of six teams crafted by Graf ahead of making his final decision.
“[Graft] cut the list to six finalists and held Zoom calls with those teams,” The Athletic reported. “He met with each of the teams again before trimming his list of suitors to one.”
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Top Undrafted NHL Free Agent Signs With 50-Loss Team