Tomas Tatar

Lore & Background

When the Sharks selected Tatar 28th in 2009, the front office was looking for a high-motor, skilled winger who could slot into a fast-paced system. They got exactly that. Tatar arrived in San Jose as a 20-year-old with NHL-ready feet and a willingness to play both ends of the ice, and he never really left the top-six once he established himself. His shifts were long, his forecheck was aggressive, and his breakaway speed made opposing defensemen flinch every time he got the puck in transition.

In the Sharks' locker room, Tatar was the kind of player teammates gravitated toward—not the loudest voice, but the one who always showed up at full throttle. He was a steady presence during the 2012–13 and 2013–14 seasons, years in which San Jose was a legitimate playoff contender, and fans at SAP Center learned to associate his number with a specific kind of electric, hard-to-block offensive pressure. He was never a 40-goal sniper, but the chances he created, the odd-man rushes he forced, and the defensive pressure he applied made him arguably the most *complete* winger on the roster.

His departure after the 2014–15 season stung. Tatar went on to have a career-defining stretch in New Jersey, and Watching him thrive elsewhere only reminded San Jose fans what they had in him. In the unofficial canon of Sharks lore, Tatar occupies a special place: the player who was never quite the headline act but was, for five seasons, the engine under the hood.

In Their Own Story

The SAP Center is half-empty, a Tuesday night in February, and the ice is still fresh from the Zamboni. Tatar is on the bench, stick laid across his knees, breath fogging in the cold arena air. The puck drops, and he's already moving—no wasted stride, no hesitation. He steals it at the blue line, two touches, and suddenly he's skating the wing with a defender trailing by a full stick. The crowd noise swells, that low hum that San Jose fans make when they sense a play is about to break open. He cuts inside, feeds the slot, and the puck rips past the goalie's pad. Tatar doesn't celebrate. He just skates back, taps his stick on the ice, and lines up for the next faceoff. Five years of this. Five years of being the guy who makes the system *click*.

Reader's Guide

28th overall, 2009. That's where the story starts, and in the context of the 2009 draft class, it was a smart, low-risk selection for a Sharks front office that was building around speed and structure.

The 2009 draft was deep in defensemen and had a few generational talents at the top, but by the late 20s the board was thinner. Tatar, a 19-year-old Slovak with a reputation for elite skating and a willing, physical game, fit the Sharks' profile perfectly. They weren't looking for a franchise center at 28; they were looking for a top-six winger who could play 18–20 minutes, forecheck hard, and not be a liability on the back end. Tatar checked every box.

The strategy made sense in real time. San Jose was in a rebuilding-to-rebuilding phase, and a skilled, two-way winger at a mid-first-round cost was exactly the kind of value add that separated a .500 team from a playoff team. Tatar didn't become a star immediately, but he became *reliable*, and in a system that rewarded consistency over flash, that was enough to keep him locked in the top-six for five straight seasons. The pick paid dividends not in a single explosive year but in a sustained, quiet contribution that fans only fully appreciated once he was gone.

Did You Know?

• Tatar was selected 28th overall in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, making him one of the Sharks' key first-round additions of that era.
• He is Slovak, born in Poprad, and carried the tricolor jersey in international competition alongside his NHL career.
• During his San Jose tenure, Tatar was consistently one of the team's top skaters in transition, a hallmark of the Sharks' fast-paced offensive identity.
• After leaving San Jose, Tatar went on to have a career-best offensive season with the New Jersey Devils, a fact that still stings for Sharks fans who remember his quiet, steady years in the Bay Area.