There are plenty of reasons to be excited about Alexander Wennberg joining the San Jose Sharks.
“I tried the rain in Seattle,” he joked first thing Tuesday morning, “so I'm hoping to try a little more sun this time on the West Coast.”
The 29-year-old Wennberg signed a two-year, $10 million contract with the Sharks on the first day of free agency.
The playmaking center has averaged more than a half-point per game in his career, recording 91 goals and 244 assists in 712 games with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Seattle Kraken and most recently the New York Rangers via a 2024 trade deadline deal.
Wennberg also cited other reasons he's excited to join the San Jose Sharks, including the opportunity to lead a rebuild, becoming closer with fellow Swede William Eklund and the advantage of playing alongside a number of centers.
When asked if the fact that he has a full no-trade clause in 2024-24 and a 15-team trade list in 2025-26 helped him decide to sign with the San Jose Sharks, Wennberg said:
At the end of the day [with] Hockey and family are the most important things to me, and this is a great career choice for my parents, for my career and for our family.
That was kind of crazy [trade] “The situation I was in last year in Seattle with my wife, who was 37 weeks pregnant. Of course, that was in the back of my mind. But I wouldn't say that that was what made me decide to sign with San Jose. I would say it was about what's best for my career and my family.”
Wennberg said he is excited to have taken the first step in rebuilding.
It's me and [ex-Rangers teammate Barclay Goodrow] It can be a big part of it. I think that's also a big part of why we're here. Not just to help the young guys, but for ourselves. The opportunity for us is to lead this team. Obviously last year wasn't the best year, but this time, with the talent and the guys we've added, it looks like it's going to be a really good year.
That's something I'm looking forward to. Obviously, coming to Seattle, we were starting a new organization from scratch. It was a similar situation in a lot of ways with a young team coming in.
I've started by rebuilding a team and building something, and it's really exciting to be a part of that process. So I feel like this could be really good, and I'm really excited about it.
“It was a really good team,” Wennberg said of those who mentored him during his early days in Columbus.
They had a lot of good players, Cam Atkinson, Matt Calvert. [Nick] Foligno was a really good captain, and Boone Jenner was really supportive and helped me out a lot.
Ryan Johansen had some stuff that helped me evolve my game a little bit.
There are a lot of players from Columbus and other teams in attendance.
“It was amazing,” Wennberg said of watching his fellow Swedes start training together in August for the new NHL season.
I know Eklund a little bit. I see him every summer and I played with his dad at Djurgården maybe 12 years ago. I've reached out to him and we've laughed about it. But he's just a great kid. A great player. I'd love to get to know him a little better.
Wennberg said of the San Jose Sharks acquiring a number of center prospects this offseason:
I always say it's good to have two centers on a line because at the end of the day, obviously someone is going to start as a center, but the game of hockey is very fast and it's all about reaction, so I think it's good to start as a center and end up as a wing, so you can push each other and help each other out.
