Former San Jose Sharks third-round pick in 2021 Benjamin Gaudreau will not sign with Team Teal and will re-enter the NHL Draft in 2023.
Goaltender Benjamin Gaudreau will be re-entering the NHL Draft this season.
The San Jose Sharks originally drafted Gaudreau 81st overall in the 2021 NHL Draft, but the Sharks did not sign him to an entry-level contract.
Team Teal had until Jun. 1 to sign the 20-year-old Sarnia Sting netminder. While that day hasn't come yet, Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now confirmed on Tuesday that Gaudreau would re-enter the draft with the netminder's agent Eddie Mio.
On Monday, San Jose Sharks GM Mike Grier addressed the goaltending pipeline and what their possible decision would be regarding Gaudreau.
"With [director of goaltending Evgeni Nabokov] and [goaltending coach Thomas Speer], we’re still going through that, and we do have meetings here in the next couple of weeks where we’ll sort that out and figure out if we’re gonna sign Ben or not," Grier said.
The San Jose Sharks have bolstered their goaltending prospect pool with the signings of Magnus Chrona and Georgy Romanov.
According to SJHN, Mio said that the reason why Gaudreau decided to re-enter the draft is not due to the amount of goaltending the San Jose Sharks have in the System.
It will be interesting to see if there is a team that takes another chance on the goalie this coming June.