Called Shots

Ivar Stenberg is an NHL player in 2026-27, full stop, with rookie output around 50-plus points.

Test runs October through April. He signed his entry-level deal July 3 and every published opening-night projection has him in the top nine, but role is not production and the number is the bet. One anchor projection lands under it, at roughly 48.

Doing both the Trouba signing and the Nurse trade is an overcommitment whose bill lands around 2029, right as the title window opens.

Either move alone was defensible; the blue line genuinely had to be fixed. Wrong if the Sharks extend the core in 2029 and can still add without subtracting. Right if that summer is spent moving Trouba or Nurse to make room. Revisit every offseason through 2029-30.

Collin Graf signs a short bridge deal in August rather than being traded before camp.

A read, not a conviction. He is the last unsigned RFA and the odd man out of an overloaded top nine, which makes him the obvious chip if San Jose adds another veteran defenseman.

On the two teenage shortstops the public shops disagree about, the truth sits closer to FanGraphs on Luis Hernandez and closer to MLB Pipeline on Josuar Gonzalez.

The shops are two full years apart on both: FanGraphs has Gonzalez in 2031 and Hernandez in 2032, Pipeline has them in 2029 and 2030. The call splits them rather than picking a side. Gonzalez is a year older, is already at a full-season affiliate, and his limiting factor has been health rather than performance, which is a more fixable risk than whether he can hit. Hernandez has one professional season and it was in the complex, where the attrition FanGraphs prices in is real. Interim marker well before the ETAs resolve: whether Gonzalez holds a full-season level through 2027 while Hernandez needs a second complex-adjacent year.