SAN JOSE, Calif. — This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not this year. The lottery? That wasn’t the San Jose Sharks’ concern anymore. No, this team is pushing for the playoffs now. And while they didn’t make the postseason, they certainly made an impression on the league. The Sharks were not just on the rise; they are imminent. Their NHL draft lottery odds reflected that. After finishing with the ...

The San Jose Sharks introduce new general manager Mike Grier during a news conference at SAP Center in San Jose, California, on July 5, 2022.

Randy Vazquez/Bay Area News Group/TNS

SAN JOSE, Calif. — This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not this year.

The lottery? That wasn’t the San Jose Sharks’ concern anymore. No, this team is pushing for the playoffs now.

And while they didn’t make the postseason, they certainly made an impression on the league. The Sharks were not just on the rise; they are imminent. Their NHL draft lottery odds reflected that.

After finishing with the ninth-worst record in the league, San Jose had just a 5.3% chance of landing the No. 2 overall pick.

And yet, here we are.

The ping-pong balls bounced, the hockey gods smiled, and general manager Mike Grier walked away with the second-best asset in what appears to be a strong, deep draft.

And while every other team in the league is looking at the Sharks with pure, unadulterated envy, this gift is also, for Grier, a massive, Grade-A, double-Advil headache.

Because picking at No. 9 is easy — you just take whatever top-tier talent falls to you and call it a win. But picking at No. 2? That requires a decision that will define this franchise for the next decade.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Gavin McKenna is going to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The “Next One” (how many times have we used that one?) is headed to the epicenter of the hockey universe, and the best of luck to him with all of that.

So, at No. 2, the draft truly begins.

And this is where the “consensus” and the “reality of building a hockey team” are currently engaged in a bare-knuckle brawl on X, the Everything App (if by everything you mean all the bad things).

The go-to answer is loud. It says you take Ivar Stenberg.

And that would be a great pick. After all, if you’re picking No. 2 overall, you shouldn’t pass up a Swedish forward who just spent his season putting up numbers as a teen in the second-best league in the world — the SHL — that we haven’t seen since the Sedin twins. He’s dynamic, smart, a bit saucy, and, according to most scouting accounts, the “Best Available Player” for the Sharks.

But the Sharks aren’t a team that should be picking No. 2 overall. The “best available player” logic applies to a team that’s starting a rebuild, not ending one.

Seriously: How many elite, undersized-to-average-sized forwards does one team actually need? The Sharks already have Macklin Celebrini. They have Will Smith. They have Michael Misa. The Sharks arguably have the greatest collection of forward talent ever assembled in their pool. The cupboard isn’t just full; it’s overflowing.

Adding Stenberg would be like buying a fourth Ferrari when your house doesn’t have a foundation. Sure, the driveway looks incredible, but eventually, the thing that actually matters will sink into the dirt.

What the Sharks actually need — what they have been searching for since the start of the rebuild, which really kicked into high gear with the trade of Erik Karlsson — is a true, ace defenseman. Specifically, a right-handed shot who can skate like the wind, carry the puck through the neutral zone, and anchor a top power-play unit without being a liability in his own end.

Fate, it seems, has a sense of humor, because that exact player exists in this draft, at least as far as I see it.

His name is Chase Reid, and he’s been absolutely lights-out for the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds of the OHL.

Reid might just be the final “infinity stone” for this Sharks prospect pool.

He’s an engine. He’s a stabilizer.

And yet, if you suggest on the internet that the Sharks should take Reid over Stenberg, the “BAP” (Best Available Player) police will come out firing.

They’ll tell you it’s “insane” to pass on a forward with Stenberg’s ceiling for a defenseman.

They’ll tell you that you never, ever draft for need in the top three. To do something counter to that would be ludicrous.

But I think that line of thinking is crazy, because since when did the goal become stockpiling talent instead of building a hockey team?

The rebuild is over, or at the very least in its final stage. This needs to be the Sharks’ last lottery pick.

And Grier must know better than anyone that the free-agent market for defensemen this offseason is a barren wasteland. Darren Raddysh? Really?

If you want a top-pair D-man in 2026, you either have to trade the talent equivalent of your firstborn — something that the Sharks can, but probably shouldn’t do — or you have to draft him.

Taking Reid isn’t “reaching.” It’s acknowledging that a hockey team is a delicate ecosystem. If you keep drafting wingers because the spreadsheets say they have a slightly higher offensive ceiling, you end up like the Maple Leafs in the years preceding this No. 1 overall pick — all the scoring in the world and nowhere to go in April.

Is it a tough decision? Absolutely. With Celebrini as his center, Stenberg might win a scoring title one day.

But Reid, in due time, of course, might be the guy who allows your elite forwards to actually play in the offensive zone.

So, sure, take the “consensus” pick if you want to play it safe and keep the folks on the internet happy.

But if I’m Grier, I’m looking at that No. 2 pick and seeing a brilliant, borderline unfair chance to finally fix the one problem that has plagued this team for years – to grab the final infinity stone.

So, unless Grier has a big-time trade, at a reasonable cost, for Dougie Hamilton, Roman Josi, Simon Nemec or Filip Hronek in the barrel and ready to fire, I say take the defenseman. Hell, trade down a pick or two to get him, even. But close the loop.

The hockey gods just let you cut in line to get anything you need.

Don’t get distracted and take something that you merely want instead.

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