DOH 172 – One Game is Better Than None
October 12th, 2011, 9:53 pm
The season starts with a bang, the Sharks beating up on the Coyotes 6-3. However, it’s been 4 days since, and no games. Mike and Doug talk about the only game, the Niemi and Havlat situations, look forward to the Ducks and Blues, and talk some NHL news too.
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Completely agree with the different sense of feel of the team. It’s like they have a whole new confidence level. Love that first line too much.
I think you’ll reconsider the schedule being in the Sharks’ favor when you look at their games’ density in March. They play something like 17 games in March, more than Detroit, Vancouver and Los Angeles. This includes several back-to-backs.
I don’t think it’s worth the light schedule to start the season, despite the argument that we are missing two key players in Havlat and Niemi. Even if we were to lose these first four games, I’d easily trade that for a lighter schedule to end the season and enter the playoffs.
We’ve been talking a lot on hfboards about a Shane Doan rental (assuming he wants a “shot” at a “ring”, the issue being is this even possible? and if the cost would be impossible to afford, especially if LA gets into a bidding war with us (they have more pieces than we do- to give).
Certainly a pipe-dream at this point, but tell me you don’t want DOAN for that third line wing.
Which brings me to my questions DUDES. If a Doan rental were possible, would you want him on the Marleau/Thornton line, or the Mitchell/Handzus line?
Shane Doan is probably my favorite non-Shark player in the league. That would be awesome.
I’d put him with Marleau and Thornton, because that would just kick ass. But there’s no change he’s coming here, for several reasons. One, he has an NMC, and I would doubt he’d be willing to go anywhere else. Two, it would put PHX under the cap floor, so they’d have to take some salary back in exchange, so it’s not as if they’d save a lot of money. Three, didn’t we just trade a top-6 forward because we had 7 of them?
That’s not to say I don’t like Shane Doan. He’s a helluva player, and would be an absolute superstar on most of the teams in the NHL.
The thinking was he’s in the last year of his contract – as a short-term rental would be be willing to waive his NMC and could we get him some something less than a 1st + which is too much obviously. He would then be free to re-sign anywhere he wanted including Pho in theory (I’d personally still want him for SJ). Not sure if the smaller portion of the season pro-rated saves Pho from the cap floor.
I realized when we started talking about it how impossible it was, but a boy can dream.
Per the Phoenix coyotes discussion… The only player I’d want – and the only one I think DW would want is Raffi Torres…
Dudes, don’t you think he’ll be available around the deadline or as soon as they fall from contention.
Torres has an extra year under contract and is making something like 1.5-1.75m per..
What about a Torres-Handzus-Mitchell line?
Just to add to that… In my estimation, Torres is exactly the type of third line winger we need.
He’s known for an occasional two goal game here and there. Several times in his career he’s scored in that 16-28 goals range. He’s a pests-pest… I could only imagine opposing teams trying to deal with that line – trying to keep one eye on Torres and still having to deal with Mitchell’s speed and big Zeus down the middle….