Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...SAN JOSE — The big question on the brain at the first Sharks development camp practice on Tuesday was simple.
Have you ever seen a 7-foot hockey player? “No,” said San Jose Barracuda coach John McCarthy, who was taking in the proceedings with the Sharks’ prospects. “That’s the first one.”
It was a first for just about anyone around the Sharks practice rink at SAP Center, an eye-popping, jarring sight as new San Jose draft pick Alexander Karmanov skated around the ice with Sharks legend Joe Thornton.
Thornton, at 6-foot-4, earned the nickname “Jumbo Joe” during his playing career. Standing next to the 7-foot-1 Karmanov, whom the Sharks selected 201st overall, he looked more like bite-size Joe.
“He’s huge,” second-overall pick Ivar Stenberg said. “I wasn’t on the ice with him, but I saw him in the gym. Good guy, and yeah, big guy. For sure, he’s one of the biggest guys I’ve ever seen, so yeah, that’s fun to see.”
Karmanov’s exceptional size – he’s not just tall, but also stout at 280 pounds – could be an unprecedented weapon for the Sharks down the road. Were he to make the NHL roster one day, he would become the tallest player to lace up his skates in hockey’s best league.
But he has a long way to go to reach that potential, and those skates will have a lot to do with whether he gets there. Achieving his NHL dream will require undertaking the massive project of improving his skating and puck-handling skills, which are a definite work in progress at this point.
Getting his feet up to par would help him reach heights the league has never seen before. The tallest players in NHL history – Zdeno Chara, Matt Rempe and Viktor Svedberg – all measure 6-foot-9.
“Puck skills, stick skills, every skill,” McCarthy said of traits Karnamov needs to develop. “A lot of our development plans, there’s an emphasis on different areas, but a lot of them are pretty standardized. Puck skills, using his stick defensively. Obviously physically he has the size, so just those little things that we talk about with a lot of our defensemen.”
One area of Karmanov’s game that shouldn’t be a problem is physicality, but even that is a double-edged sword. At the 18-year-old Moldovan’s height, even a simple shoulder check could connect in the head or neck area.
Rempe has gained a reputation during his brief tenure in the league for hard hits, but the sheer scale of his frame makes him more likely to take penalties given how much shorter his opponents are.
McCarthy didn’t seem too concerned that Karmanov would have similar problems.
“There’s ways that you can coach around that,” McCarthy said. “Have an active stick, and make sure you’re keeping your hands down. There’s different things you can do.”
Stenberg also hit the ice for the first time since being drafted on Friday, and he drew a crowd wherever he went.
A group of children, including some youth hockey players in the stands, chanted his name each time he touched the puck, and he didn’t disappoint, showcasing his skating ability and skill of what he could provide this fall as the Sharks’ third-consecutive top-two pick.
“It’s been super cool,” Stenberg said. “Super fun for sure. I’ve been dreaming of this moment my whole life, and I’m here. So yeah, it’s super fun, and I’m super happy about it.”
Asked if he had heard a group of kids chant his name before, Stenberg said he had. Not a shock, given how successful he was with Frolunda in Sweden, where he scored 33 points in 43 games last season.
But trademark Swedish humility still shone through as he emphasized, “Not too many times.”
There could be a few more in his future if he has the career many expect.