Let’s talk about a certain player, call him Player N. Player N is a big time NHL player, with several Stanley Cup wins. He is being courted by many teams around the NHL, including his current team. The Sharks, having made no moves at all in free agency, are in the sweepstakes. However, the Sharks, for no reason I can fathom, have apparently not pursued any other free agents in the market. The Sharks watch them being picked up one by one. Holik, Amonte, McCarty, Gonchar, Hatcher, Rathje. The Sharks still wait. Aucoin, Demitra, Leetch, Modano are gone. The Sharks don’t make a peep. They want Player N. The problem? Player N wants to play with his friggin brother. This is not exactly breaking news. It was a big story two years ago when the Devils met the Ducks in the Stanley Cup finals.

Now the Sharks really look foolish. At the beginning of this free agent flurry (not Fleury), the Sharks didn’t do squat, and then they run after a player they have virtually no chance of signing, missing out on a truckload of good players that have been traded or signed by other teams in the West. Now the Ducks are better.Calgary got Darren McCarty and Tony Amonte. The Oilers got Chris Pronger and Michael Peca. Dallas resigned Mike Modano. Vancouver got Markus Naslund back. The Kings signed Pavol Demitra, and now Jeremy Roenick is there too. The Sharks? All they’ve done is manage to lose one of their big 4 defensemen, Mike Rathje. I guess it could be worse. He could have gotten picked up by the Coyotes.