SAN JOSE >> The Sharks are optimistic that the players they brought in on the first day of NHL free agency can help them become a more competitive team this upcoming season.

But there is also a decent chance, if the roster more or less stays the same, that the Sharks will be right back in the same spot they were this past season — near the bottom of the NHL standings, massive sellers at the trade deadline and in the mix for the No. 1 overall draft pick.

The Sharks on Tuesday signed forwards Philipp Kurashev and Adam Gaudette, and defenseman John Klingberg, and acquired goalie Alex Nedeljkovic from the Pittsburgh Penguins.

While each player should be able to contribute in some fashion, fans might be wary of buying anyone’s jersey just yet. Klingberg and Nedeljkovic can become unrestricted free agents next year, and Kurashev and Gaudette can be UFAs in 2027.

“I think I’ve been pretty consistent in saying I don’t want to hand long-term contracts necessarily right now, that this might not be the time to do that,” Sharks general manager Mike Grier said Tuesday after the acquisitions were made. “There will be a time where we’ve got to lock up some guys and give them a little bit more term, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”The Sharks have been sellers at the deadline each of the last six years and were especially active this past March, trading Jake Walman, Nico Sturm, Vitek Vanecek, Luke Kunin, and Fabian Zetterlund to playoff contenders. Walman and Zetterlund were under team control for at least one more year.

Will the same thing happen this year? Grier doesn’t like to lose pending UFAs for nothing, and along with Klingberg and Nedeljkovic, defenseman Mario Ferraro and center Alexander Wennberg can walk away in 2026.

Players have come and gone in San Jose for years, and this year’s roster will be barely recognizable from the one that finished the 2023-24 season. When will the constant roster churn end?

Grier said it could be soon.

Klingberg, the most high-profile Sharks acquisition, is signed for one year, and Nedeljkovic has one more year left on his deal and is also set to be a UFA in 2026. Kurashev, signed for one year, will be an RFA with arbitration rights next summer and, per PuckPedia, can become a UFA in 2027. Gaudette is on a two-year deal.

“These are players we like, and players that we also think there’s upside in all of them to produce well for us,” Grier said. “They’re good people too, so hopefully it might turn into something that’s a little bit longer term than just the one year.”

If he has a good season, Klingberg, on a $4 million contract, could be an attractive player to add at the deadline for any contending team. However, he said his one-year deal with the Sharks could potentially turn into a longer-term partnership if they experience some success.

“That’s the plan for sure if things go well, and if the team wins, I feel like I’m going to be a part of that too, and we’ll see what happens,” Klingberg said Wednesday.

Klingberg, one of the NHL’s top scoring defensemen earlier in his career, might be the most tantalizing Sharks addition.

Healthy again, the 32-year-old Klingberg started to regain the form he showed earlier in his career during the Edmonton Oilers’ run to the Stanley Cup Final. In 19 playoff games, Klingberg had four points and averaged over 19 minutes of ice time as the Oilers came two wins of the Cup before losing games 5 and 6 in the final to the Florida Panthers.

Klingberg, who had resurfacing surgery on both of his hips in December 2023, said this is the first time in about five years that he’s been able to train during the offseason properly. With that in mind, he feels capable of playing 22-24 minutes a game like he did earlier in his career.

“I don’t know if I agree that it’s still a rebuild,” in San Jose, Klingberg said. “I think they’ve done the rebuild, and now they’re probably just building. They have all the assets there, so that’s very exciting.”

As of Wednesday, the Sharks, per PuckPedia, were still over $9 million shy of the salary cap floor, so adding players from cap-strapped teams to improve the roster is not out of the question, just as long as those individuals do not have several years left on their contracts.

It’s also worth noting that potentially another generational-type talent, center Gavin McKenna, will be available at the top of the 2026 draft. This past year with the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers, McKenna had a staggering 100 points during a 40-game point streak to finish the regular season.

McKenna had 129 points in 56 regular-season games and 38 points in 16 playoff games as Medicine Hat advanced to the Memorial Cup final.

Sharks fans are all too aware that the team with the fewest points has the best chance, at 25.5%, to win the draft lottery. But the Sharks are not thinking about that, or the trade deadline, right now.

“We’ll be a better team, and I think a lot of that will come through some internal growth with our group,” Grier said, mentioning William Eklund, Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith, Shakir Mukhamadullin, and Collin Graf.

“If those guys keep taking little steps forward in their games, and then hopefully in the net, we’ll have a solid tandem in there and have some more consistency. Another year in (Ryan Warsofsky’s) system should help as well. Having Klingberg back there, someone who can break pucks out, get the pucks up to our forwards, all that should help.”