What's Next for the Sharks?

The San Jose Mercury News offers this perspective on changes that may be on way, including speculation about Patrick Marleau...and the dismissal of a report by the Ottawa Sun's Bruce Garrioch whose story was distributed by Sun Media. From the article:

Report has Wilson insisting Marleau won’t be traded, but Sharks GM says that decision not yet made

David Pollak, "Working the Corners", MercuryNews.com, June 4, 2009

Doug Wilson was in Pittsburgh yesterday for the NHL general managers’ meeting that preceded Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals. Afterward, he talked with reporters about both the situation here in San Jose as well as the league-wide debate on shots to the head.

And in this morning’s Toronto Sun, these two paragraphs appeared in a story focusing on trade talk:

“Another GM getting a lot of attention is San Jose’s Doug Wilson. Sources say he has gotten numerous calls about captain Patrick Marleau and centre Joe Thornton after a first-round exit from the playoffs, thanks to the Ducks.

“Wilson insisted he isn’t going to move either player, but he wants to make moves.”

Now what should get your attention is that part about Wilson insisting that Marleau will be playing for the Sharks next season. If true, that would be big hockey news in San Jose.

But I talked with Wilson this afternoon after he got home and he said the report is inaccurate. He said he never said that to anyone and, in fact, didn’t field any questions at all from the Sun reporter present, Ottawa-based Bruce Garrioch.
Wilson acknowledged that he again put himself on record saying that Thornton won’t be traded (as reported by Mark Purdy last week). And, Wilson added, Dan Boyle isn’t going anywhere either. But for now at least, that’s where that list ends. Everybody else? Well, he said, he’s not yet ready to put further limits on what could happen as far as building next season’s roster.

(I emailed Garrioch to let him know that Wilson denied lumping Marleau in with Thornton; Garrioch responded that his sources were other NHL general managers.)

Another report out of Pittsburgh said Wilson had completed his “autopsy” as far as the Sharks’ first-round playoff exit. He’s close, the GM said, but he still has one more player meeting set for Thursday and a session with Coach Todd McLellan on Friday before that process wraps up.

“Then everything will be officially complete,” Wilson said. “Once I finish up with the coaching staff, we’ll go from there.”

As far as trades, Wilson acknowledged there were “an awful lot of discussions” at the general managers’ meeting and “those discussions are ongoing.” The likely time frame for any announcement, of course, is between the end of the playoffs and the June 26 entry draft.

Wilson also didn’t dismiss the idea, as broadly suggested in a Tampa Bay blog, that the Sharks could be putting a package together for one of the top two picks in the 2009 draft. “We’ve explored everything,” he said. “There isn’t a conversation we haven’t had.”

For the most part, Wilson wouldn’t talk about re-signing individual players off last season’s roster — with a couple of exceptions:
**Ryane Clowe — The left-wing becomes a restricted free agent on July 1 and it would seem to be in the Sharks’ interest to have him re-signed before then. To that end, Wilson said he met with Clowe’s agent in Toronto last week and is scheduled to talk with him again on Monday.
**Rob Blake — The veteran defenseman has said he wants to play for San Jose next season, and one report circulating says that’s a done deal. Wilson said only that he’ll meet with Blake next week “and we’ll go from there.”

(SIDE NOTE: The global economic mess complicates all contract negotiations this summer. League revenues didn’t drop this past season because most tickets were purchased before things turned ugly, so Gary Bettman is projecting the 2009-10 salary cap will be between $54 million and the current $56.7 million. But there is much concern about revenues for the coming season and if things do slide downhill, so will the cap. How far, of course, becomes part of the guesswork in structuring all multi-year deals.)

EJ Hradek and Andrew Rothstein make their splash in the Sharks' pool.

SHARKS SHOULD SNAG ANOTHER SCORER
Star's addition could take bite out of scoring burden
EJ Hradek, Andrew Rothstein/ESPN INSIDER, June 23, 2009

Plugging Holes - San Jose Sharks


The Hole: Scoring right winger


The Presidents' Trophy winners were the best team in the regular season, but that had more to do with their league-best 21.2 GVT on defense as opposed to their 20th-best -9.6 GVT on offense. San Jose has an excellent center in former Bruin Joe Thornton, 17.8 GVT, and a good left winger in Patrick Marleau, 15.8 GVT. Devin Setoguchi's 13.9 GVT is solid but not spectacular given his 8.7 GVT on offense (which puts him not only behind Thornton and Marleau, but also behind the defenseman Dan Boyle). The Sharks also lack depth at right wing, the only position on the ice without at least two players having GVTs over 10.


The Fix: Sign F Marian Hossa (UFA, Red Wings)

Hossa is going through a rough time this week. After leaving the Penguins to pursue a Stanley Cup in Detroit, his team is handed a seven-game defeat by Pittsburgh. By adding Hossa, 19.7 GVT, San Jose acquires a more productive player than anyone on the team last season. Hossa's 14 GVT on offense this past season also makes him a bigger threat than San Jose's previous top offensive threat, Thornton, who had a 12.3 GVT on offense. Hossa would instantly become the top right winger and bump everyone down the depth chart. That would leave Claude Lemieux, -1.8 GVT, as the odd man out, but he's an unrestricted free agent and he's not productive anyway.


E.J.'s Take: This pairing doesn't make sense to me. The player who hasn't been able to get over the Stanley Cup hump matched with the team known for its playoff failures? The stats may say this works, but this would be a major challenge for everyone involved.


Then, there's another problem: How do the Sharks fit Hossa's free agent salary under the cap with their current roster? They'd have to deal a significant player to make that happen. I'd be shocked to see this marriage come to fruition.


I do expect GM Doug Wilson to seek a trade to change the personality of his team. Captain Marleau has only one year left on his current deal, but he has a no-trade clause. It might be easier to move a winger like Milan Michalek or Jonathan Cheechoo. If Wilson wants to go the free agent route, he might take a look at Ruslan Fedotenko, who could work alongside either Thornton or Marleau. Fedotenko, who the Prospectus folks believe should interest the Wild as well, has shown an ability to score big goals during two different Cup runs in Tampa and Pittsburgh.

Andrew Rothstein is a writer for Puck Prospectus. E.J. Hradek is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine.

Note: A mainstay of Puck Prospectus's metrics is "Goals Versus Threshold" (GVT). The stat blends an array of offensive and defensive figures to measure the value, in terms of goals, a player contributes above what the marginal player would over the course of the season. A marginal player is one that could be replaced with a player of equivalent skill, e.g. from the minors. For instance, Evgeni Malkin had an offensive GVT of +18.9, a defensive GVT of +4.5 and a total GVT of +23.4 for the 2008-9 regular season, meaning that Malkin was worth 23.4 goals more than a marginal player over the course of the season, or worth about 0.3 additional goals per game. In the team context, GVT refers to performance above an NHL average team. For the regular season, the Detroit Red Wings had a +30.8 offensive GVT, a +15.1 defensive GVT, a -21.5 goaltending GVT, for a +24.4 total GVT. Therefore, at even strength, Detroit was 24.4 goals better than the average team.

From Pierre Lebrun this morning:

SHARKS RE-UP WITH EMERGING CLOWE
Pierre Lebrun, ESPN.com/July 3, 2009

Ryane Clowe and the San Jose Sharks have agreed to a four-year contract worth north of $3.5 million a season, a source told ESPN.com Thursday night.
The 26-year-old power winger from Newfoundland was a restricted free agent coming off a career-high 22 goals and 52 points in 71 games last season.
Clowe was drafted in the sixth round (175th overall) in 2001 by San Jose.

Pierre LeBrun covers the NHL for ESPN.com.

What's next for the Sharks?

Hopefully a trade for Heatley.

How on Earth did they sign Blake for that much?

Too much, too long, too late.

wprager wrote:How on Earth did they sign Blake for that much?

Probably with a gold tipped Mont Blanc pen.

SpezDispenser wrote:

wprager wrote:Too much, too long, too late.

I must have misread it, I thought it was one year @ 3 million.

I must be remembering something else, then. I thought it was a 2-year deal. Frankly, I thought signing him last year was an iffy mood, the guy is old, big and with a broken leg (or something). Never was super fast to begin with, and definitely slowed down significantly with age, but it worked out for them. Still, I would be very concerned.

And to sign him for that much when you can't make the cap? They will have to get rid of some players, and then you have to wonder -- was it worth it to get rid of player-X for one more year of Blake?

For me, no.

From San Jose, some thoughts on the Sharks, and one Dany Heatley...

On those new deals for Clowe and Huskins — plus an update on Heatley interest
David Pollak, San Jose Mercury News, July 3, 2009

This may seem a little tough to reconcile, but here goes:

Sharks GM Doug Wilson still won’t talk about any of the new contracts for Ryane Clowe, Kent Huskins and Rob Blake.

But a source in the Sharks organization did confirm for me that Clowe has a new four-year deal at $3.6 million per year, that Huskins has a new contract that will pay him $1.5 million this season and $1.9 million next season for a cap hit of $1.7 million each year. And that reported $3.5 million for Rob Blake next season? That figure is accurate, too.

Wilson, as most of you know, has a long-standing policy of not discussing contracts until they are registered with and approved by the NHL. That hasn’t happened yet, I am told, and won’t be happening until Monday at the earliest because league offices are closed today for the holiday weekend.

Still, just enough information trickled out that at least I can confirm the numbers already circulating out there with even a little more specificity.

(And yeah, I know. Those Clowe figures also showed up elsewhere first. Trust me, I’m not happy.)

Here are a few other things to pass along from a few phone calls as I made the rounds this morning.

**With Marcel Goc and Tomas Plihal out of the picture, the Sharks know they need centers. Torrey Mitchell is the obvious answer for the third line, but what about the fourth? Worcester players will get a serious look in training camp, but the answer may be more likely to come from outside the organization, through trade or free agency.

Ideally, Sharks are to get a little more feisty. They’re interested in finding somebody who will kill penalties, sure, but they wouldn’t mind if the guy took a few every now and then, too.

**Some of you have figured this out already: When Wilson talks about reconstructing his team, he’s talking about the team as it enters the playoffs next spring.

Not that there won’t be more changes coming before then, but it’s the team that emerges after the trade deadline that matters the most.

**This next sentence is me backpedaling: Those reports out of Canada linking the Sharks to the Dany Heatley situation may not be so preposterous after all, despite what you may have read here before.

Not saying that something is happening, just saying that the local view may have shifted a little once July 2 got here and there wasn’t a $4 million bonus payment to deal with.

SpezDispenser wrote:To further that actually, the Sharks need to fill out their roster. Auld, Schubert, Picard, Kelly, Heatley, Ruutu for Clowe, Vlasic? At least they fill out their roster, get a center and get the most coveted winger on the market (arguably haha).

That's about $14 mil going to SJ, and $7 mil coming back to OTT. Given SJ's rather precarious cap situation ($1.3 mil in cap space, with only 8 F, 7 D, and 1 G), I don't think that's a trade that works for them. They need to move money to create a little cap space so they can fill out their roster -- not take on more money.

SpezDispenser wrote:

rooneypoo wrote:That's about $14 mil going to SJ, and $7 mil coming back to OTT. Given SJ's rather precarious cap situation ($1.3 mil in cap space, with only 8 F, 7 D, and 1 G), I don't think that's a trade that works for them. They need to move money to create a little cap space so they can fill out their roster -- not take on more money.

Yeah, my bad, those moves would have been to fill out their roster, but we'd need to take Marleau to make it work.

Make it three way. Send Marleau to Edmonton along with Smith and Auld, and maybe Cheechoo. We'll take Penner and put him on a stationary bike until training camp starts. Then well take the rest in picks.

I've wanted picks and prospects all along but I doubt we see either in a Heatley trade now.

Cap'n Clutch wrote:I've wanted picks and prospects all along but I doubt we see either in a Heatley trade now.

debating whether we see a trade for the bum at all, what an extreme low to high to low we went through as fans, first pissed off he wanted to be traded, then it dawned on us what we could get for him, then so far we have gotten nothing, he is still property of the Sens, and apparently wants to screw over the whole organization.

wprager wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:

rooneypoo wrote:That's about $14 mil going to SJ, and $7 mil coming back to OTT. Given SJ's rather precarious cap situation ($1.3 mil in cap space, with only 8 F, 7 D, and 1 G), I don't think that's a trade that works for them. They need to move money to create a little cap space so they can fill out their roster -- not take on more money.

Yeah, my bad, those moves would have been to fill out their roster, but we'd need to take Marleau to make it work.

Make it three way. Send Marleau to Edmonton along with Smith and Auld, and maybe Cheechoo. We'll take Penner and put him on a stationary bike until training camp starts. Then well take the rest in picks.

if we can sneak Clowe in that deal as well, Murray better do it, at least then Fat Penner doesn't look so bad coming here in that deal. besides, you just wanted to say 3 way.

Heatley has made himself at home in San Jose. From the New York Times yesterday:



Playing his first home game as a member of the Sharks, the much-maligned Heatley scored a hat trick in front of his new hometown crowd and was the obvious first star in a 6-3 win over Columbus.

The video above doesn’t show it, but when the puck dropped again after this third-period penalty shot goal, the Shark Tank crowd chanted his name: “Dan-nee Heat-ley” followed by five rhythmic hand claps. They repeated the chant after he was interviewed over the house P.A. system as part of his post-game curtain call. San Jose has a new hero.

Of course, that meant we couldn’t miss Three Guys on the Radio over Ottawa’s Team 1200 to hear their reaction, especially after they had bad-mouthed Heatley for months, including this gem. During the 8 o’clock hour, all co-host Steve Warne could muster was an unenthusiastic “My hopes for a 35-point season for Heatley isn’t happening.”

Thirty-five points? Not likely. Playing with Joe Thornton (who got four assists on the night) and Devin Setoguchi (who tallied an early third-period goal, which chased leaky Blue Jackets goalie Steve Mason, and an assist on Heatley’s first goal), Heatley adds a proven sniper to the Sharks’ first unit, something they lost as Jonathan Cheechoo’s game declined in the past few seasons.

“They’re a very dangerous line. I thought they got better as the night went on and I think that’s a sign they’re starting to click,” Sharks Coach Todd McLellan said (quoted by David Pollak in The Mercury-News). “The goals, the assists — that’s all nice. The fact that they played fast and in the right areas of the rink is what impressed me the most.”

http://slapshot.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/the-morning-skate-san-jose-loves-heatley-and-some-weird-goaltending/

---

...and the Times even mentioned TGOR.

Heatley can do what he wants in the regular season, but SJ won't win the trade unless Heatley somehow makes a difference for them in the playoffs, and well, if he stays true to his Ottawa form, when the games count more and he starts to get physically pressured, he will go back to floating.

Luckiest team in The NHL. If shootouts were part of the playoffs, they actually might have a chance.