The Keaton Verhoeff Deep Dive

With the ninth overall pick, the San Jose Sharks drafted Keaton Verhoeff, a big young defenseman who took on the NCAA challenge a year before his peers. Verhoeff was a consensus top-three pick entering the 2025-26 season, but fell due to his struggles in the NCAA. What are the Sharks getting with Verhoeff?

Keaton Verhoeff
Defenseman
6'4" 215 pounds
Birthday: June 2008 (18)
Right-handed

Source: Keaton Verhoeff @ Elite Prospects

One of the biggest knocks on Keaton Verhoeff in the draft cycle is his skating. While Verhoeff will not be a burner, some of the concerns do look correctable. His biggest issue is when he has to pivot from skating backward and turn around to skate forward. He looks slow, and it seems he is taking an extra step.

It shows up a few times.

And the skating shows up again.

A couple of things to keep in mind:
Wisconsin was on an absolute mission against North Dakota and blitzed them from the opening whistle.
A friendly reminder that Verhoeff played his entire freshman season as a 17-year-old.
These all feel like correctable issues.

Verhoeff's skating feels a lot like that of former Shark Shakir Mukhamadullin, who also struggled when transitioning from skating backward to forward. The Sharks were able to iron out some of these issues with Mukhamadullin and his pivots and corners became a lot cleaner in the NHL. The Sharks are getting 18-year-old Verhoeff and have plenty more time to work with him to clean up these issues.

It could also be a case of general teenage awkwardness as Verhoeff continues to grow and get more comfortable with his body. (This writer tripped over his own feet more times than he'd like to remember in high school). As Verhoeff gets stronger, he should be able to clean up many of these issues and be much smoother in his pivots.

Keaton Verhoeff does show off a strong defensive base already, and his poke check will be an absolute weapon with his size and reach.

And as soon as he jumps on the ice.

And another in the neutral zone.

While he will need to avoid relying on it.

The last clip is one where you'd like to see him be more physical in the defensive zone, eliminate the attacker along the wall, and kill the play. He showed this type of skill, and as he gets more confidence in his skating, it will show up more.

Verhoeff also showed plenty of solid defensive IQ in his own zone and snuffs out plays and springs them the other way.

Verhoeff has plenty of offensive chops as well, but they weren't fully on display this season with North Dakota. He was used as a triggerman on the second power play unit because of his shot and has plenty of skills on the point as well.

A great give and go where he gets the defense to freeze on his pass and goes to the empty space to receive the puck and buries it.

Here he pinches it, protects the puck along the wall, sheds his defender, and tries to get a puck to the slot. While you'd like a crisper cutback, the processing and execution are there.

Here, he gets a defender to commit to him and finds the forward crashing to the net, and the tip just misses.

Verhoeff has all the tools you want in a defenseman. It felt like watching Sam Dickinson on the Sharks this year, where he was very focused on not messing up in his own zone. With the Sharks' development staff, and entering his sophomore season at North Dakota, Verhoeff could look more like the player who put up 20 goals as a 16-year-old in the WHL. The tools are there; it's a matter of everything coming together.