San Jose Sharks
Additions: Curtis Brown, Mike Grier, Mark Bell, Patrick Traverse, Graham Mink, Mathieu Biron
Subtractions: Alyn McCauley, Scott Thornton, Tom Preissing, Josh Hennessy, Matt Carkner, Michael Vernace
Analysis
Last year the Sharks pulled a real fast one getting Joe Thornton out of Boston for three solid players from what turned out to be a surprisingly deep team. Thornton really deserved better than the treatment he was getting in Boston. He’s worth every penny of his $6.33 million per year contract and, even better, he meshed tightly with Jonathan Cheechoo, propelling the youngster to a 56 goal season and the Maurice Richard trophy. Ultimately, San Jose got the best player in the deal. They traded players who are readily available for a Superstar.
This season things get interesting for the Sharks. Cheechoo and Thornton get to play together for the whole year, and will likely be joined by newcomer Mark Bell. Bell is a big, strong, hard worker who managed 21 and 25 goals in his last two seasons playing for the dreadfully poor Chicago Blackhawks. If he fits in on the top line as well as is hoped, San Jose could easily boast the best line in the NHL next year.
Directly behind big Joe is Patrick Marleau, team captain and a very solid two way player. Marleau has scored at least 20 goals in all but two of his 8 NHL seasons and had a career high 86 points last year. On most NHL teams, he’d be the undisputed number one center. The good news there is that it’s tough to pay two #1 centers, especially in the era of the salary cap. It’s also difficult to find enough quality ice time to go around. And finally, it’s reaaally tough to find enough high-quality wingers for two guys making $10 million between them.
San Jose is also “burdened” with two quality goaltenders. The only burden they’re feeling is the weight of Evgeni Nabokov’s $5.375 million per season contract. Coupled with his sub-par season last year, that makes Nabokov very difficult to move. With Toskala outplaying Nabokov at a fraction of the price, Nabokov becomes dead weight that could stand in the way of acquiring a top two defenceman, for example.
The defence in San Jose is fairly inexperienced and lacks a true anchor. The Sharks could not afford to seriously puruse any of the top blueliners available this summer, and this will likely stop them from improving on their playoff success last year. They should however be one of the best teams in the regular season. If they can manage to wrest a solid blueliner in exchange for Nabokov (or even for Toskala if Nabokov can return to his pre-lockout form) they may well become the team to beat in the West. At the very least Dallas will have some serious competition on its hands for the division title.
Defence still wins championships and right now, San Jose doesn’t have it on the blueline. They do however have depth and several promising youngsters in the organization. If they can either pick up or develop a couple true top two defencemen before the contracts of their key guys like Thornton, Marleau, Cheechoo, Bell and others run out, San Jose should be set for a very serious Cup run.
They did help their grit and penalty kill by picking up Mike Grier from the Buffalo Sabers. Grier is the type of guy that makes any team better. Buffalo made a big mistake not keeping a valulable team leader and gritty third liner. But Buffalo’s loss is San Jose’s gain.