So far, so off the radar this offseason with the additions of Handzus, Vandermeer, Burns and Havlat.

You gotta love how Doug Wilson operates so far off the grid, it keeps us guessing and the next move could come at any moment – or not until February. Who knows? I’ll give Doug Wilson high marks for his efforts this offseason and we know this about our GM – he will not spend the 6.1M in cap space that remains just because it’s there. If a player is available that fits any amount of that space that is on the infamous “Ghost Roster”, he will act quickly. If not, he will wait.

In the past, Doug Wilson has acquired a 3rd line energy forward with fighting ability in Travis Moen and Ben Eager. While Eager’s ability to play on the 3rd line is debatable, Moen has been pretty effective everywhere else other than San Jose in that role of hitting people and chipping in with some goals and rough stuff.

In 2009, the Sharks were linked at the trade deadline with The Beast from the East, Ottawa Senators forward, Chris Neil. He ended up not being traded and signed a contract extension, but with two years left on his deal at 2M per season, he fits my final roster goal of adding a rugged 3rd line winger who will hit anyone and anything. Neil played 80 games last year, finished 6th in the NHL in hits with 258 (Dougie Murray had 203 as a point of hitting reference). Neil played nearly 13 minutes a game and almost all of it came even strength. He has playoff experience during the Senators playoff run in 2006-07 and he didn’t lose his mind like Eager and was able to suit up for all 20 games, playing over 10 minutes in all the Cup Finals tilts.

You can choose to believe the rumor mill or not, but Neil’s name in Teal has come up multiple times, as has Jason Chimera’s (a guy we’ve talked about on the podcast as another potential roster casualty in Washington). Chris Neil would be a real solid addition and complete the Sharks remodeled look on the 3rd line. He’s an intimidating presence, an experienced agitator who has some hockey skill and a great locker room reputation.

What would it take to get him? Ottawa needs young forwards and might be interested in someone like Tommy Wingels, Benn Ferriero or Brandon Mashinter. They aren’t going to win many games this year, so they might want to go for youth and shed Neil’s salary. I think they’d want a young player who could potentially play now, not someone who is two-three years away.

What do you think? Does Chris Neil match what you’d like to see Doug Wilson do next?

Neil-Dog in Teal?

In a move that no one could have predicted, even with a Ouija board (which makes it standard Doug Wilson), the Sharks traded one of the best scorers of the past decade, Dany Heatley, for Minnesota’s top scorer, Martin Havlat.

My initial reaction is that, player for player, this deal is terrible for the Sharks.  As I tweeted a few minutes ago, before this admittedly disappointing and sub-par year for Heatley, Havlat’s best season would have been Heatley’s worst.  It’s not a trade for value.  It’s a trade for a team that’s looking to shed salary.

That being said, this trade happened for one or more of the following reasons:

1. The Sharks no longer wanted Heatley around.
2. The Sharks needed to shed salary to make room for another signing or trade.
3. The Sharks just want to save some cash.

I can’t think of any more reasons than these.  If the Sharks wanted Havlat so badly, couldn’t the deal have been made without Heatley being a part of it?  After talking with Doug just now, it’s probably a combination of all three.  The Sharks have two big players’ contracts up this time next year- Couture and Burns.  If you give Burns $5M or so, and you have to pay Couture $3-4M, there’s not a whole lot of room left.  By CapGeek’s numbers, that’s 12 players signed, with around $9m in cap room for 9 players.  That’s a tight squeeze.  If I try to put on my “DW is all-knowing” hat, which I seem to have misplaced, he saw that writing on the wall, saw the opportunity to move an odious contract, and took it, getting a guy that has the kinds of skill that DW thinks the team needs.

More later.

Ben Eager signed a three year deal with the Oilers on July 1st. Doubtful Doug Wilson wanted to go for that kind of term with a guy who didn’t exactly earn the trust of the coaching staff during the playoff run. We’ve seen in the past that the Sharks like to have this type of forward on the roster, with the presence of Scott Parker, Brad Staubitz, Jody Shelley, Jamal Mayers and Ben Eager all wearing Teal the past few seasons. The Sharks might decide it’s time to allow prospect Frazer McLaren to handle this 4th line duty, but McLellan hasn’t exactly displayed a ton of confidence in him and he had injury problems last season in Worcester.

My nomination based on the remaining free agents is a resident NHL bad boy, Jarkko Ruutu. He can drop the gloves, he’s a pain in the ***, and he’s not completely lame in terms of skill – he’s actually pretty good in the shoot out. He can kill penalties, he can take penalties. He can bite people (ask Andrew Peters) and he’s usually good for a suspension per season. At 35, he’s on the down slide of his NHL career but can still be effective in his role. He was part of the Penguins team that went to the Stanley Cup in 2008 and played 20 games during that playoff run, so he’s able to stay on the ice (unlike Eager was last year). He has international experience with three Finnish Olympic Teams and played nine games in their 2006 Silver Medal run with Niittymaki in net and six games for the Bronze Medal team in 2010.

Face meet Ruutu's Fist. Ruutu's Fist meet Face.

When the dust settles in a few days, or weeks even, don’t be shocked if Ruutu is in Teal. This would be in addition to adding another 3rd line player to the fold, like a Chimera, Hansen or Langenbrunner (see post below). He has the experience, grit and resume Doug Wilson might admire to fill his annual roster quota.

One year and $750,000 should get it done.

GOTTA LOVE WHEN YOU SPELL JARKKO WRONG AND THEN POST IT. WHEE!

Mike bet me a beer that we wouldn’t sign anyone today. Me likey beer.

After reportedly losing out on Maxim Talbot, the Sharks added depth defenseman, Jim Vandermeer, and third line veteran center, Michal Handzus, in what is turning out to be some pretty deliberate tweaks to the Sharks roster this offseason. We’ll break down the additions in more detail on the podcast next week, but this does mean Huskins won’t be back (phew) and that the Sharks realized the need for a legitimate 3rd line center and Handsy has been plying his trade and also putting up decent points in his career.

We wanted a new third line. We’re halfway there. Handzus down the middle with Torrey Mitchell having the ability to play either wing gives Doug Wilson the flexibility to acquire one more impact player. By targeting Talbot, we might have grabbed a glimpse at the type of player he’s after, a physical winger with character, grit and occasional scoring touch. I’ve peaked at the remaining free agents and I don’t really see anyone who fits the bill as an “impact” player. A physical unsung hero to do the dirty work and take some pressure off the top six. Perhaps the best players left in this category are Jamie Langenbrunner, who had a down year in 2010-11, and Owen Nolan, who didn’t play in the league in 2010-11.

I think it’s time for Doug Wilson to do what he does best.

Take advantage of teams in trouble.

We’ve seen Doug Wilson poach good players in bad situations time and time again. Tampa Bay was desperate to move Dan Boyle’s contract under new ownership, we got him for a song. Dany Heatley had Ottawa bent over a barrel and the Sharks waited until Murray caved in. DW nudged Niemi out of Chicago with his offer sheet to Hjalmarsson last summer. He knows how to play this game and after watching some teams spend like loons, he’s waiting for the other salary cap shoe to drop when they need to unload a solid player as a money casualty. Three potential targets off of needy GM’s:

Jason Chimera (Washington) – Chimera was linked to San Jose two years ago when the Sharks were looking to deal Ehrhoff. He has a big shot, he can hit people and has pretty decent speed and size. With Ward and Brouwer in town and the Caps needing to sign a few RFA’s, I think Chimera just lost his job and the Sharks can absorb his one year remaining at 1.875M pretty easily.

Jannik Hansen (Vancouver) – An RFA, we’ve seen Doug Wilson play the villain in this position before. He proved last summer he was not afraid of an offer sheet, especially if it could screw over a rival, so why not throw one Hansen’s way and either force Vancouver into a bad deal or get a good, young 3rd line player. A 3M offer isn’t out of bounds for the 25 year old Hansen. Vancouver would likely match and it would put them in a cap bind the rest of the year. If they didn’t, the Sharks give up a 2nd round pick as compensation, screw the Canucks and a good young player in Hansen. Win, win.

Scott Hartnell (Philly) – This is a monster reach, but the way the Flyers have been going, you never know what they’re thinking out there. The Flyers don’t have much cap space and need to sign RFA Wayne Simmonds, who is their new Scott Hartnell. If we offered Torrey Mitchell and change in return, they would get a useful bottom six winger plus the salary cap relief needed to get Simmonds into the fold. Like I said, a reach – but that’s what blogs are for, right? Hartnell and Handzus together with their mullets flowing in the wind. Beautiful, just beautiful.

We’ll see what happens in the coming weeks…

No Tooth. No Shirt. No Problem. I'm Brent Burns baby.

Really quick post. We’ll have more coverage on the podcast next week.

As we do every late-June, Mike and I sit around and watch the NHL Draft and lament how nothing happens for San Jose. There have been some big moves in the last 24 hours and the Sharks just joined the party in a major way.  San Jose landed a legitimate top pairing d-man in Brent Burns and a 2012 2nd rounder from Minnesota for Devin Setoguchi, top prospect Charlie Coyle and our 2011 1st round draft pick. A heavy price to pay, but think about it this way, the Sharks just got a player in Burns who led their team in time on ice, 2nd in PK time and 2nd in PP time. He is 6’5, hits, blocks shots and had 46 points last year with 17 goals. If Burns were a UFA on July 1st, he would have been the top rated defensemen on the market, in the Dudes’ opinions.

It should be noted that Todd McLellan coached Burns in the AHL in 2004-05, so he’s clearly familiar with the player and what he can offer. We’ve been begging for a partner for Boyle and we finally got him. It should be noted that with Burns on the team, the Sharks still have 9.5M in cap space (including the bonus cushion) and that’s plenty of room to add two quality 3rd line players on the UFA market, a position that Doug Wilson could be competitive in. I think it’s not too far fetched to expect Doug Wilson to be a major player on July 1st for impact 3rd line players like Maxim Talbot, Pascal Dupuis, Marty Reasoner, Scottie Upshall, Eric Belanger, Vernon Fiddler, or John Madden. Form a legit 3rd line that can take our top players to the next level, battle and do the dirty work while chipping in some key goals.

It’s a high price to pay but this could be a big first step for the Sharks 2011-12 run for the Stanley Cup. I’m riding the high. We got a #1 d-man for a 40 point forward, a really good college forward and an unknown prospect.

Have a beer on me. Brent Burns is a Shark kids.

The first of several TLDR (too long, didn’t read) posts this summer concerns a key aspect of this Sharks team- the third line.  Generally on most teams, the third line is a defensively minded trio that should shut down the opponents’ best players, maybe contribute 20-25 points per player, and have the trust of the coaching staff to kick in some PK time.  However, some teams go another way, a road less traveled, yet more treacherous.  These teams like to continue to pour on the pressure in the offensive zone, field three scoring lines, and dare their opponents to keep up.

So where did the Sharks reside in this spectrum?  Mostly on the offensive side- Pavelski/Mitchell/Wellwood had some great scoring punch (102 points in the regular season, 22 in the playoffs, mostly due to Pavelski’s 66 and 10, respectively), but Pavs was the 2nd most used shorthanded forward, with Mitchell 6th.  And as many Sharks fans have noted, they did not serve a ‘shutdown’ role, T-Mac likes to match power with power.

This is pretty similar to Detroit’s style (sound familiar?).  Detroit’s third line this year was largely Hudler, Filppula, and Modano/spare parts, tallying around 100 points if we include Modano’s 15 points contribution in the 40 games he didn’t play.  Detroit went even more offensive with these guys- none of them played significant PK time.

Or we could look at Vancouver, as Tom mentioned in a comment in the last post, with Malhotra/Hansen/Torres (not always Torres, but probably close enough).  All agitators or defensively-minded, all tough to play against, all can play the kill.  Tom also accused us of flip-flopping a bit, since we seemed to endorse more of the Vancouver style third line instead of the Detroit model in the last podcast.  Admittedly, this would be a sea change for the Sharks.

My opinion is based on what a wise man once said to Woodward and Bernstein- “follow the money.”  I furtively wish that the Sharks could go and gather as many great players as they possibly can, pay them Yankees money, go win the Stanley Cup, and I’ll live out my days watching the championship DVDs over and over again.

Unfortunately, reality intercedes.  Two inconvenient truths:

1. The Sharks defense is not amongst the best in the West.  In fact, it might be considered merely average.
2. The Sharks do not have a lot of money to spare on said defense.

For me, it comes down to a question of salary mix.  Detroit is spending good money on their third line, around $7.5M, for the privilege of third line scoring punch.  And why can they afford it?  Because they are only spending around $24M on their top 6 forwards.  Vancouver had a good shutdown third line, for which they only spent an economical $4.5 or so.  And why?  Because they spent a ton on their D, about $24M.

In contrast, the Sharks spent only $18M on their defense last year, but they spent $24 on their top three forwards- Jumbo, Heater, and Patty.  Then another $7M and change on the second line, which was unquestionably a great deal.  Only the Kings and Caps spent more than the Sharks on forwards last year, and it was close- the Kings spent less than $100k more, the Caps spent about a million more.

So my opinion has to be based on this reality- the Sharks are extremely forward heavy in terms of salary distribution, and I believe a #2/#3 defenseman is their highest acquisition priority.  This means something has to give, and that must be the third line.  I don’t believe it’s wise for the Sharks to have a $4M third line center, even if he puts of 66 points.  You keep him, but he should be playing the second line.  Maybe that means Seto is the odd man out.  Or maybe it’s Pavs.  Or maybe it’s one of the big 3.  It would be incredibly difficult to make that call, and I don’t envy Doug Wilson’s position here.

The bad news is, I believe if the Sharks defense remains middle-of-the-pack, which it probably will be, even with Ian White, it will be the same old playoff slog next year.  The Kings are improving.  The Blackhawks will probably be better next year.  Vancouver might re-sign some or all of their free agents.  Now that Feaster is the GM, Calgary might do something worthwhile.  My new position is resources must be shifted.  They must be shifted to defense, and the third line should again serve a more traditional role.

Did I flip-flop?  Like a fish out of water on ketamine.  But as the proverb says, a wise man changes his mind, a fool never will.

Do you know the way to San Jose?

• Member of 2002, 2006 and 2010 USA Olympic Team.
• Former captain of two different NHL franchises in Buffalo and New York.
• Calder Trophy winner. Hobey Baker winner. Stanley Cup winner. Multiple trips to Conference Finals in both conferences.
• Played 70+ games for 11 straight NHL seasons until last year.
• Chronic knee condition and surgery limited him to 24 games in 2010-11 and Torterella’s dog house.

Chris Drury is an interesting story to follow this offseason. Will he retire and sail into the sunset to live off his big 32.5M payday from the Rangers or will he continue to rehab the knee and give it another go. He would be 35 going into next season and IF he could recapture even part of what made him one of the best defensive forwards and faceoff guys for several years in the NHL, wouldn’t some NHL teams be interested? We know Doug Wilson has given guys a chance in the past. He has brought in established NHL veterans and given them another shot with Jeff Friesen, Claude Lemieux, Jeremy Roenick. Their last chance before retirement and one more shot to win the big one.

The Sharks have been linked to Drury in the past via trade and his free agency in 2007. I could see Doug Wilson making a phone call and an offer of the same deal Roenick signed in 2007. One year and $500,000 to prove you’ve still got it. Drury has been known as one of the most competitive guys in the NHL. Unless his knee is beyond repair, you gotta think he’d consider it.

Based on Doug Wilson’s track record and Chris Drury’s competitive spirit, it’s not too far fetched. I’m not saying I’m advocating for it, I’m just saying…it could happen.

Sharks hockey is over you say? Yes, it is. Sorry, I can’t change that – but you can get a glimpse at a potential Young Dude on the NHL Network tonight when Sharks goalie prospect J.P. Anderson is in between the pipes for the Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors in the Finals of the Memorial Cup.

What is the Memorial Cup, you say? How dare you! It is only the Final Four of Canadian Major Junior Hockey! What the BCS should be NCAA Football. It pits the playoff winners of the three Canadian Hockey League’s which are the Ontario Hockey League, Western Hockey League and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in a final tournament with a host team (which happens to be Anderson’s Mississauga St. Michael club) for the steal cage match of amateur hockey to crown the Summer Slam champion, the winner of the Memorial Cup.

Sharks prospect J.P. Anderson has had an amazing year in the Ontario Hockey League, posting the following stats:

Regular season: 38-10-1 with a 2.36 GAA and .911%

OHL Playoffs: 15-5 with a 2.11 GAA and .920%

Memorial Cup: 3-1 with a 1.76 GAA and .939%

Hard to say what Anderson’s future holds in the San Jose Sharks organization but his accomplishments this season in junior hockey have likely opened some eyes. For the 2nd straight season, he has won the Dave Pinkney Trophy for having the fewest GAA in the OHL regular season. At 19 years old, there’s likely no rush to push him into professional hockey, especially with Tyson Sexsmith, Alex Stalock and likely Harri Sateri circling for playing time in Worcester, but he’s definitely a guy to keep an eye on in the next two years.

Enjoy checking out this kid and his bright future tonight. Good luck Young Dude.

She’s not crying because it’s her last show….she saw the replay of the final two goals last night.

We will be recording this afternoon with our post Conference Finals thoughts. Keep all sharp objects at a safe distance today.

I went 0 for 5 with a beautiful woman this afternoon. Still a loser.

This afternoon, it appeared the hockey gods had smiled a giant toothy Baba Booey grin upon the Sharks. The Vancouver parade to the penalty box was plentiful, they were losing their composure and the Sharks were given golden opportunity after golden opportunity to take the lead. And then…0 for freaking 5.

When lady luck invites you over, you have to score. That’s the bottom line.

Sure, the Sharks melted down and allowed multiple 5 on 3’s and three goals in two minutes, but it never ever should have gotten to that point. The Sharks had been operating at a tasty 41% (5 for 12) on the PP in the first three games, so they should have easily had a 2-0 lead after five free gifts from Vancouver. The Sharks could gain the zone. They could even set up, but it was one shot and done, Vancouver was always first to the puck and they could clear from anywhere at any time.

We said at the beginning of the series that special teams would decide the winner. The Sharks may have dug their own grave today by refusing their free gift from the Canucks. I’m not giving up but I was pretty disappointed today. I can handle losing, but when the Sharks had the girl back at their place, took her upstairs and got her undressed…they busted out their Bobo Fett action figures.

Want to feel better? Vancouver has been up 3-1 against Chicago and Nashville in the playoffs this year and they lost both Game 5’s at home, so all is not lost. All you have to do is win one game to make this a series again and I have to believe the Sharks will do just that.

We will record the next podcast on Wednesday to talk about Game Six….make it so.