Nabby. Toskala. One will be here when the season starts and one will be polishing his mask for another NHL team in October. Who would you keep? What deals are out there? Here’s my take.

ST. LOUIS BLUES
They have gone for a major make-over in order to hope the city and its fans can forget the embarrassment of a team they fielded last year. The Blues have gotten active in the FA market signing Guerin, McKee, Hinote and others gives the impression that they want to be competitive again soon instead of rebuild with kids. Their two current options in net are not going to cut it – and Manny Legace is certainly not going to take them into the playoff hunt.

Are they willing to offer one of their top defensemen (Salvador, Brewer or Jackman) and a high draft pick for Toskala? Would they consider a defensemen and the high salary of Tkchuck for Nabokov and Nils Ekman? I would make both these deals and I’m sure Wilson is exploring this as an option.

DETROIT
I know this notion makes Mike feel sick to his stomach and I know Wilson will not give one our boys to them for free. Hold the Wings hostage – they want to rebuild with youth and shed some veterans? How about Toskala and a young d-man we don’t need like Jim Fahy or Davison for Schneider? We get a top two defensemen and a power play master.

FLORIDA
They will be looking for a goalie when they get sick of watching Adrian Auld. Not ready to pull the trigger and I’m not sure they have much beyond Bowmeester that we would want.

I trust Doug Wilson. He has made some brilliant deals – stealing Ekman from the Rangers for nothing and raping the Bruins for Big Joe. He has made some duds (Brad Boyes for Curtis Brown and the big stinker Kipper to the Flames). But….I trust him still. He will make the right move. So read this blog Dougie boy, take off your helmet and pull the trigger. Get us the Top 4 Defensemen we need to put us over the hump and lets bring the Cup to Silicon Valley.

GO SHARKS!

The Sharks were involved in a three-team deal with the Chicago Blackhawks and the Ottawa Senators. The Sharks sent Tom Preissing and prospect Josh Hennessy to the Chicago for Mark Bell. The Hawks then sent Preissing, Hennessy, Michel Harinka, and a 2nd round pick to the Senators for Martin Havlat and Bryan Smolinski.

At first, it seems like the Sharks gave up a lot. Preissing had a breakout season with the Sharks, and solidified his position on the power play, and as a top-4 defenseman. I can’t comment intelligently on Hennessy at all, but he did average over 1 point per game in the AHL last year.

Mark Bell is a big strong forward who has good hands around the net and can score. He also has averaged over 100 PIMs per year throughout his career, so you know he uses his size. He only scored 5 more points last year than Preissing, but keep in mind two things- he played for the 2nd worst offensive team in hockey (only St. Louis scored fewer) and Preissing got a lot of power play time with Joe Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo, who were point scoring machines on the PP.

Chicago has agreed to terms with Havlat for 3 years and $18M. Smolinski is 34, and can give veteran leadership. It bums me out a bit that we didn’t get Havlat, but given how much more Chicago gave up, we probably would have had to ship another one of our good young players as well as Preissing, which Doug Wilson probably didn’t want to do.

I haven’t seen enough of Mark Bell to really get a bead on how good he can be with the Sharks, but I’m going to try and keep an open mind. The Sharks have now given up two top-4 defensemen in the past year, and not signed any. It seems all the teams that went deep in the playoffs have at least one premier blueliner, and the Sharks are decidedly thin in that department.

The free agency period has started, and there have been almost too many moves to count. It seems every team has made a major trade, or signed a major free agent. I might post some more general thoughts later, but for now, I’m going to discuss the changes in the Pacific division in detail. There are just too many moves to really do a league-wide analysis justice while keeping it under 5000 words.

I did my best to get the gained/lost lists right, but I gleaned them by hand from the ESPN NHL transaction list. I can’t use the team transaction pages because it doesn’t have the players lost.

Anaheim Ducks – Upgrade
Lost: Joffrey Lupol, Ladislav Smid, Jeff Friesen, Ruslan Salei, draft picks
Gained: Chris Pronger
Seems like the Ducks lost a lot, but they gained more. Lupol and Salei were good players, but nowhere on the same level as Pronger. No doubt they got better. Their power play, with Niedermayer and Pronger on the point, will be fearsome to behold.

Dallas Stars – Downgrade
Lost: Jason Arnott, Bill Guerin, Willie Mitchell, Johan Hedberg, Niko Kapanen, 7th rounder
Gained: Darryl Sydor, Patrick Stefan, Jaroslav Modry, Jeff Halpern, Matthew Barnaby
Losing Arnott and Guerin hurts the Stars. They gained two good but not great defensemen in Sydor (who played in Dallas from 1996 through 2003) and Modry. Patrick Stefan may in fact be the worst #1 pick in the last 20 years. Maybe Alexander Daigle was worse, depends if you ask an Ottawa fan. I personally thought Willie Mitchell was one of the best trade deadline pickups of last season, and they let him go for nothing. Dallas will certainly not win the division next season.

Los Angeles Kings – Downgrade
Lost: Pavol Demitra, Jeremy Roenick, Joe Corvo, Mark Parrish
Gained: Brian Willsie, Alyn McAuley, Scott Thornton, Rob Blake, Patrick O’Sullivan
I only rate the Kings as a slight downgrade. They traded Demitra on draft day for O’Sullivan and draft picks (they got Jonathan Bernier with their first round pick, no relation to Steve). Blake will help on the power play, but he’s 36- there’s no way to predict how many games he’ll play. Demitra was rickety too, so it’s hard to say how many games were lost by trading him. Corvo and Parrish were pretty big hits, especially since Parrish went to a Western team. Roenick is barely a role player at this point.

Phoenix Coyotes – Upgrade
Lost: Paul Mara, picks
Gained: Ed Jovonovski, Jeremy Roenick, Mike Morrison, Nick Boynton, picks
The Boynton-for-Mara deal was another dumb trade for the Bruins. Mara has slightly more offensive upside, but Boynton is bigger, stronger, and a solid defensive plus player. Jovanovski was one of the biggest free agent signings so far. Roenick was probably a PR move more than anything else, but could end up being a nice surprise in the scoring department. The Coyotes will be much tougher on D this year, and could be a playoff threat.

San Jose Sharks – Push
Lost: Alyn McAuley, Scott Thornton
Gained: Mike Grier, Curtis Brown
The Havlat-Toskala deal died when the Senators managed to sign Martin Gerber from the Hurricanes, so the Sharks end up essentially standing pat for another offseason. We were in the Pronger sweepstakes apparently, but the Oilers didn’t need a goalie since they re-signed Roloson. They wanted “three young players” which probably meant Bernier, Ehrhoff, Michalek, or Carle. I think the Sharks were wise in not giving them up. Right now our trade bait is Nabokov or Toskala- we shouldn’t ditch the young core of the team. Signing Mike Grier was a good move, for essentially the same salary amount we gained by releasing Thornton. But the Sharks still need a decent left wing.

I’m not excited about facing Phoenix or Anaheim 8 times next season with the moves they made. But it ain’t over yet. There are some free agents still out there that I think can add value for us.

So the current rumor is that the Sharks are willing to trade Vesa Toskala to the Senators for Martin Havlat, but there’s a hangup. Havlat only has one year left on his contract, and the Sharks want him signed to 3 more years if they make the trade. I’m not sure which party is holding things up, whether Havlat wants to test free agency in a year, or other terms of the deal are contentious, but I don’t have a good feeling about this. I think if this deal was going to go through, it would have happened by now.

In other news, our Save-a-Seat day at the Tank will be in about a month. Doug and I will have to get together and talk strategy- which sections we want, what price ranges, all that crap. It’s a very exact science.

I actually watched some of the NHL draft. I guess I am now officially hardcore. I mostly watched because the rumors are that the Sharks are going to trade either Toskala or Nabokov, and a lot of deals go down on draft day for picks. The Sharks made a minor deal, trading their first and second round picks to Montreal for their first round, so they could draft Ty Wishart, a defensemen. There were two big trades so far- Alex Tanguay was traded to the Flames for Jordan Leopold and a 2nd round pick on Friday. On draft day, the Wild traded a prospect and a 1st round pick for Pavol Demitra.

It’s fun to see what these trades say about the teams involved. In the first trade, Calgary is recognizing that they need offense, and are willing to give up D to get it. The Avs clearly aren’t super confident that they are going to re-sign Rob Blake, so they wanted to shore up blueline help. The second trade says that the Wild are ready to spend cash to make a legitimate playoff run, and hope that Demitra will entice Marian Gaborik to stay. As for the Kings, they aren’t expecting to contend for the division, and are rebuilding.

Lots of rumors floating around. Apparantly the Kings offered Alexander Frolov and Dustin Brown (Doug says Mattieu Garon too) for Nabokov. Two problems with that deal. The first big reason is I don’t want to play against Nabokov 8 times a year. The second is that neither Frolov or Brown are really proven scorers. Frolov is a talented kid, would be great on the power play, but I’m not sure he could ever score 35 or 40. For a solid #1 goalie, you should be able to get that. Brown is so young, he’s a wild card. He only had 28 points last year playing the whole season, and was a minus player. That’s 4th line material.

Doug told me about two more rumors. The Lightning are offering Ruslan Fedotenko and Frederik Modin for Nabby. Same problem with that deal as the Kings deal- I don’t think the players are good enough. They are both roughly 50 point scorers. I’d rather get a 70 or 80 point scorer for Nabby than two 3rd or 4th liners. The last is the Sens are offering Martin Havlat for Toskala. Now we’re talking! Havlat is a great scorer, and had a great playoffs (6-5-11 in 9 games) after coming back from a shoulder injury last year. I would make that deal. Imagine Cheechoo, Thornton, and Havlat on a line! Or even Marleau with Havlat would be awesome.

Joe was voted the league MVP by the Hockey Writers Association, otherwise known as the Hart Trophy. He also got the Art Ross trophy, for most points during the season, with 125. Jonathan Cheechoo won the Rocket Richard trophy (most goals). Only the 3rd, 4th, and 5th NHL trophies in the history of the Sharks franchise. Nabokov won the Calder (top rookie) in 2001, and Tony Granato won the Masterson (top comeback player) in 1997. The major trophies are the Hart, Norris, Selke (top defensive forward), Calder, Vezina (top goalie), and Adams (top coach). The Ross, Richard, and Jennings trophies are based on statistical results, so there’s no voting. Everybody knows who is winning at any given time.

There are a bunch of what I would call “lesser” awards given too. The Lady Byng, Pearson (MVP voted by players), Masterson, and King Clancy (leadership) are among those. Actually, I don’t know that the Lady Byng is even good- it’s generally given out to a good to great offensive player with very few penalty minutes. In other words, it’s the “wuss” award. Marleau coming in 3rd out of 3 is actually a good thing. I don’t mean to sound like sour grapes, but do you know who’s won 5 Lady Byng trophies? Wayne Gretzky. I’ve never heard Wayne as a winner of “4 Stanley Cups, 8 Hart trophies, and 5 Lady Byng trophies”. In hockey, taking the fewest penalty minutes is not a good thing- it means you don’t get nasty enough.

I’m actually pretty surprised that Thornton won. Jagr was leading the points race until very late in the season, and he nearly won the Richard until Cheechoo overcame him. Jagr was more or less written off as a spoiled superstar who lost the touch, and he came out roaring this year for the Blueshirts. Given the general east coast bias in hockey, and the fact that Jagr nearly won both the points and the goals race, I figured he’d win. But I think the Devils’ destruction of the Rangers in the first round hurt his chances.

Joe definitely deserved it more. The Sharks were on a 10 game losing streak when we traded for him, and we played roughly .700 hockey the rest of the season. There’s no doubt in my mind that if we didn’t make that trade, we would not have made the playoffs, and possibly finished last in the division. Plus combine Joe’s amazing hands and passing ability with Cheechoo’s fantastic release and pinpoint accuracy, and you have one of the top lines in the NHL. He clearly made the players around him better.

One of my favorite things about hockey is they actually name stuff after people, and it has meaning. It’s not the NHL championship trophy, it’s the Stanley Cup. It’s not the top defenseman trophy, it’s the Norris. And while other sports have names for their awards, in the NHL those names are used primarily. In the hockey world, you don’t say Chris Pronger won MVP and top D in 2000, you say he won the Hart and Norris trophies, and everyone knows what that means. It’s just kinda cool. I wish the NHL kept the old division and conference names too, but I understand that can be pretty confusing. It makes sense that the Sharks are in the Pacific division in the Western conference, but it would be tougher to remember that the Blackhawks were in the Smythe division in the Campbell conference.

The AP just reported that the Sharks have declined the option to resign Scott Thornton for the 2006-2007 season for 1.7 million. Interesting quote in the article:

“It’s not every player you do this for, but I have a lot of respect for him,” Wilson said. “This gives him time to check out his options.”

Thornton is 35. I hope the Sharks don’t actually think that they are doing him a favor. I’m not saying that Thornton isn’t a good player, or that his career is over. I found an unofficial list of NHL salaries for last season, and a did a quick search to see what other players are making between $1.6M and $1.8M last year. Thornton made $1.71M, and that was the size of his option. Here’s the list:

• Sean Burke
• Mark Denis
• Manny Fernandez
• Brett Hull (since retired)
• Mike Johnson
• Filip Kuba
• Jamie Lagenbrunner
• Robin Regehr
• Dwayne Roloson
• Dick Tarnstrom
• Donald Brashear
• Mike Comrie
• Mathieu Dandenault
• Viktor Kozlov
• Paul Mara
• Jaroslav Modry
• Sean O’Donnell
• Cory Stillman
• Colin White

It’s a long list, so there’s lots of possible comparisons here. If I were starting a team, and I had to rank these players by who would help me the most, I think I would only take Thornton over Sean Burke, Viktor Kozlov, and Donald Brashear. So the idea that the Sharks didn’t exercise his option for his own good is patently ridiculous. He will not get $1.7M someplace else.

All that being said, the Sharks should have picked up his option for two big reasons.

1. He’s Joe Thornton’s cousin. Hockey has more relatives in the sport than any other, and lots of times those family bonds are strong. I’m not sure how close Joe is with Scott, but I do know Joe was living in Scott’s house after he was traded to San Jose. Look at Scott Neidermayer- he went to the Ducks so he could play with his brother. Cutting Scott lose can only hurt the relationship the Sharks have with Joe- it cannot help.

2. He’s a great role player and a fan favorite. There should be no sacred cows, but a lot of fans were pissed when we let Mike Ricci go, me among them. The fans, after all, are the ones that (primarily) pay the salaries. Why not take the option, put him in training camp against the youngsters, and trade him to a team making a playoff run if it doesn’t work out? The Sharks are nowhere close to the salary cap here, one that will be raised to $44M for 06-07.

There’s only one (poorly disguised) reason why the Sharks let him go- because they didn’t want to pay him. And now Doug Wilson has put even more pressure on himself to get some decent free agents. You can’t raise ticket prices by 10%, get rid of popular players, and make no signings in the offseason. Not if you don’t want to get drilled in the press.

Carolina managed to pull it out last night in a great Game 7, which capped off a great Stanley Cup Finals series. Certainly the best I’ve seen this millennium. The back and forth of the Devils-Ducks series was pretty fun, but that series had 4 (four!) shutouts. This series had two, but they were 4-0 and 5-0 beatdowns. The play of this year’s finals versus 2003 is night and day. Lots of skating and passing, and high speed hits.

I read that game 3 in L.A., shown at 5pm, lost in the ratings to I Love Lucy reruns. Not good. Game 1 lost nationwide to college softball. I don’t think that second stat is really a fair comparison, because the hockey game was on OLN, and softball was on ESPN. OLN isn’t available in 20% of homes, and I think ESPN is close to 100%. But the I Love Lucy stat is pretty brutal, because that’s in a market that has OLN and two NHL franchises.

I guess I could lament the loss of hockey from mainstream sports consciousness, but I’m not that concerned. I have season tickets and an internet connection. I can find just about as much hockey coverage as I want. As soon as they start streaming TV over the net, which OLN has done already, this will become a purely academic argument. Hockey isn’t talked about enough on ESPN or in the sports pages? Boo hoo. Heck, my favorite sports to watch on TV are hockey and beach volleyball. And I love watching cricket too, although I don’t understand about 50% of it. I guess I’m used to searching for good programming.

What a beatdown. The Oilers dropped 4 goals on Carolina, and didn’t give up any in game 6. There were a few minutes at 3-0 where it looked like the Canes may fight back and make it a game, but the Oilers were just too tough. The Hurricanes were without Aaron Ward and Doug Weight, but Eric Cole managed to come back. I wouldn’t say he was really effective however.

Game 7 is going to be interesting. In Raleigh, I expect the fans to be as crazy as the Edmonton fans in game 6. I’m still holding strong and picking Carolina, but I’m glad I don’t have money on it.

So I was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Those damn Oilers have found a way to claw back into this series, winning in overtime in game 5. The game was pretty exciting, with 5 goals scored in the first period. Then it tightened up quite a bit, and went into OT deadlocked at 3. Then about three and a half minutes into OT, with Carolina on the power play, Cory Stillman tried to make a cross ice pass at his own blueline. His stick was partially hooked, which prevented Stillman from putting the mustard on the pass you would expect. Pasani intercepted the lame duck pass at the blueline, walked in alone, and beat Ward with a wrist shot over the glove.

Although I’m rooting for the Canes, I have to admire the Oilers’ pluck. They came back from a 2-0 deficit against the Sharks, and with Game 6 in Canada, I have to think there’s more than a decent chance it’ll go back to Carolina for Game 7. In which case I’ll be in hog heaven. There’s nothing better than NHL Game 7s. Except for Game 7s in overtime. So I’m sort of half-rooting for the Oilers at home on Saturday. If they win, I’ll have a dilemma- watch game seven on Monday or go to the “State of the Sharks” event at the Tank? I think I’d rather watch hockey than talk about it.