Finally, a move. Is it what we expected? Not exactly. Today the San Jose Sharks traded perennial doghouse member Christian Ehrhoff and nice guy but on his last legs d-man Brad Lukowich to the Vancouver Canucks for two mid-level prospects, Swedish d-man Daniel Rahimi and another college player, University of Minnesota forward Patrick White. Neither of them ranked in the top 10 prospects for Vancouver prior to the trade by Hockey Future, with Rahimi coming in at #16 and White at #17. The Sharks #16 prospect is forward Matt Jones (11 points in 53 injury riddled games at Worcester the last two years) and #17 is D-man Justin Braun (unsigned 7th round pick in 2007 who had 23 points his junior year at U-Mass)

On the surface it doesn’t sound like a super sweet return. Checking in with the other blog in the blogesphere it sure seems like no one expects much to come of these young guys. I’m not saying they are top flight prospects – but let’s look at the positive in this deal. I think there’s a lot to cheer about.

1. We don’t have to watch Ehrhoff make blunder after blunder in his own zone. I know there are Ehrhoff fans out there in the world, but as you know if you read the blog or listen to the podcast, I’m not one of them. He is all risk and little reward in his own zone and I’m glad we won’t to watch the German Gambler give Nabby a heart attack night after night and leave his partner standing with his pants down.

2. This guy Daniel Rahimi, he’s not some loser. He played 13 games for Sweden in the World Juniors in 2006 and 2007 – pretty impressive for the resume. He seems to have a physical edge to his game, 104 PIM’s in 33 games when he was 18 year old playing in the Swedish-1st Division – which put him in the top 20 in the league. For a kid playing with men, not bad. Here he beats up a member of ABBA after he made a rude comment about his mother’s meatballs.

3. The cap room gained is huge for the Sharks, who now have 18 players signed and 4.3M in room. I’m still saying that Mitchell and Staubitz combined will cost the Sharks about 1.5M, so then that leaves 20 players and 2.8M after that gets done. I think this is the first swing of the wrecking ball, swing two will lead to Cheechoo heading out of town for probably a similarly unsexy take, and swing three could lead to a marquee name like Phil Kessel coming to San Jose for some prospects now that DW is stocking the kitchen.

4. Patrick White is another college player and Doug Wilson loves those. He’s a defensive guy from all reports and is currently unsigned and San Jose has until the end of the 2010 season to sign White to his entry level deal or they lose his rights and White becomes a UFA. He is a bigger question mark, having been picked in the first round in 2007 by Vancouver but he hasn’t lived up to all the hype at the University of Minnesota. What is the hype? Well, he scored five points in seven games for the USA’s Silver Medal team at the U-18 World Championships in 2007. According to the 2007 NHL Central Scouting, he was ranked #23 , just behind Sharks draft picks Couture (#19) and Petrecki (#21), so he has obviously been on San Jose’s radar. With a guy like this, DW is banking on him to come out of his shell this year now that’s he turned 20.

So Doug Wilson has struck. If this is the only move, we’ll feel underwhelmed – and I’ll also be shocked. I doubt he’d pull the trigger on this if something else wasn’t lined up and almost ready to go.

Move #2 – Could be soon.

GREAT LINK HERE TO SHARKSPAGE FOR DETAILED PATRICK WHITE SCOUTING REPORT