As many Sharks fans know, the Sharks are currently over the 2008-09 salary cap by about 226K.  There’s been much speculation about who might get traded or otherwise dumped.  As we written before in this space and mentioned in the podcast, Kyle McLaren is the most likely choice to go, for two reasons.  One is his $2.5M contract would easily bring the Sharks under the limit and provide a little bit of room to boot; the second being with the off-season acquisitions of three defensemen, Big Mac is probably going to be on third pairing detail.  Pollak blogged about it today, and it got me thinking- is there a way for the Sharks to keep McLaren?

Actually, there is.  First of all, according to NHLSCAP.com, “…from July 1 to the last day of training camp, teams may exceed the Upper Limit by no more than 10%.”  This means the Sharks don’t have to do any juggling or trading until after camp begins, allowing the team to evaluate some young players.  Currently, according to the Hockeybuzz Cap Central (powered by nhlscap.com), the Sharks have 21 guys on the roster.  Let’s say the Sharks then bring up a young guy, maybe Cavanaugh, maybe Zalewski or Joslin, for a cost of around $600K.  This means the Sharks are about $800K over.

To fully understand what I’m about to posit, know that the cap is actually calculated on a daily  basis- $56.7M divided by 186 days in the season (postseason doesn’t count) means the Sharks can spend $304,839 per day on salaries.  At $800K over the cap for the course of the entire season, this means they are over $4301 per day in salary.

Coupled with waiver wire rules, where certain young players don’t have to clear waivers (like Devin Setoguchi) the Sharks could send players down to Worchester in order to clear the room.  For instance, sending Seto down for a day would save the Sharks $6702, putting them under the cap.  The Sharks still have to actually pay the money to Seto, but they are within the cap rules.  Seto hasn’t played enough games where he has to clear waivers, so he could be a candidate for shuffling.  Any other young untested players would be in a similar situation.

Another candidate would be Marcel Goc.  He would have to clear waivers, and would be vulnerable to the Sharks losing him, but his salary would be about enough to put the Sharks under the cap.

The final option would be something we’ve seen the Sharks do before, have a player be ‘injured’ and then send him to Worchester for ‘conditioning’.  These conditioning assignments are also waiver-exempt.

Are any of these scenarios very good?  Not even close.  But if the Sharks are in trade talks with a team as the season starts, one or more of these tactics could enable San Jose to dance on the razor’s edge of salary cap compliance.  Hopefully for only a week or two, but if there is a sequence of injuries to say, oh, I don’t know, McLaren, Lukowich, Grier, and Shelley, the Sharks could theoretically skate (har) the entire season.

Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

As the seconds count down to training camp, Mike and Doug examine the Vlasic extension, the rumors surrounding Grier, McLaren, and the captaincy, and the two big trades this past week in the NHL.

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Here.  As always, we are looking for new bits and ideas, so if you have any, email us.  Even if you just have feedback either way, or are looking to get out of a Nigerian banking jam, drop us a line.

Anybody watch “The Hockey Show” on nhl.com?  I was just starved for hockey anything, as I’ve been for the past month, and actually went to the league’s home page, as opposed to the news sites I generally frequent.  Lo and behold, there’s a TV type show that the league puts out every day, complete with eye candy hostess and lack of interesting content (other than the eye candy hostess, of course).  In today’s episode, there was a video segment of Kirk Maltby’s day with the Cup, a mildly interesting story, even on such a slow news day.

This will be the fourth time Maltby has had a Cup day, and I guess he used up all his good ideas on the other three.  The segment includes Kirk taking the best trophy in sports to not one, but TWO nail salons and a pet groomer.  Jeez man, that’s all you could come up with, heading over to your wife’s workplace and where the dog gets the matted poop cut out of his fur?  It’s supposedly the first part of a two part series, and to make up for this sissy crap I hope he takes the Cup that night to a dozen whorehouses and a UFC title fight.  Weak, Maltby.

Somehow, I couldn’t get past that segment enough to watch the other segments- “Athletes against Autism”, “Islanders Ice Girls”, and “Ace of Cakes.”  Ok, I watched the Ice Girls segement.  Can’t the season just start already?

Breaking news today when the Sharks announced the contract extension of pending RFA and now poster boy for the Sharks young defensive core, Marc-Eduoard Vlasic. With exact contract terms of his four year deal not released by the Sharks and no info to be found at my usual sources, but if I had to guess (and I’m going to) I would say it is a slight improvement to Ehrhoff’s deal because of the major minutes Vlasic will asked to log this season and in the future. So I’m saying four years, 14M – at an average of 3.5M per season.

So should Mike rush out and buy his Vlasic jersey or will we see the “Matt Carle Effect” here? Is Vlasic going to crumble under the pressure of his new deal and lay a big steamer on the blueline? Will Doug Wilson be forced to package Pickles in the offseason to get a veteran D-man to take up the slack. No, no and no. Pickles isn’t in the same situation Carle was in last year and is signing the extension as a more proven NHL player with 163 NHL games under his skates who has already shouldered a major role on a playoff team…which Carle hadn’t really done when he signed his extension and still hasn’t done yet with any consistentcy.

Another great move by DW, setting up the Sharks to win a Stanley Cup today and contend for years to come. When does the season start again?? SHARKS!!!!

Check out our new podcast at Dudes on Hockey.

Mike and Doug again show their prowess in appropriating other people’s ideas; this time, they steal Puck Daddy’s “5 Things I’d Change About the NHL.”  In Sharks news, they briefly discuss the Jeff Friesen situation, and take a listener email about season tickets.

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New episode here.  This time, in true middle-of-the-summer fashion, we steal someone else’s idea- Wyshynshi’s “5 Things I’d Change About the NHL”.  Oh yeah, and we make fun of the idea of bringing Jeff Friesen to camp.

No, no they don’t.  In the second part of a 4 part series, I’m breaking down the Kings in a post that’s one part information, five parts snark.  In an (infinitesimally small) way, I wish the Kings were better, because the S.F. – L.A. rivalry is a good one.  But like other rivalries that fell into disrepair since one or both teams now suck (like Niners-Rams), the Sharks-Kings bad blood doesn’t run as thick as it once did.  And now, I must say in true Nelson Muntz fashion- Ha ha!

The Kings are the very definition of a rebuilding team.  Stocked with young players with great potential, they still aren’t nearly ready for NHL prime time, and probably look to this season as a castor oil situation.  As in, “swallow hard, I’m sure we’ll be better next year.”  Actually, castor oil isn’t nearly the funniest analogy I could have made there.

The Good

Youth Youth Youth.  I’m willing to bet the Jonas Brothers will be the most popular locker room pregame music.  Kopitar, Frolov, Brown and O’Sullivan are all strong young players.  I’m trying to think of another good thing, but I can’t right now.  Oh wait, I think they are adding Ice Girls too.  That’s good, right?

The Bad

Where to start?  How about the coaching choice?  Terry Murray last had a head coaching job with the Panthers in 2000.  He did lead Florida to a playoff berth in 2000, and the Flyers before that to the Stanley Cup finals in 1997.  Neither of those rosters had any youth to speak of like these Kings do.  And his assistant coaching job the last few years was back with Philly, where coaching up a young hockey team is as foreign as cheering for Donovan McNabb.

Let’s continue with the blueline, where the top 5 D will probably be Denis Gauthier, Tom Preissing, Jack Johnson, Matt Greene and Peter Harrold, with the sixth likely being Drew Doughty, the #2 overall pick just two months ago.  That’s two very young guys, one second pairing guy (Preissing), and three third pairing guys.  Man, the Kings are really going to have to rely on a good goaltender.

The Ugly

No dice.  After starting everyone but Justin Timberlake in goal last year, the Kings could reprise that sorry tune this year.  Choosing between Ersberg, LaBarbera, and Bernier is like choosing between Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.  The choices are thin (bah BOOM).  And none of those three even have Vicodin connections.

Maybe that’s why Dean Lombardi is steering the ship like a drunken sailor.  After trading Vishnovsky and Cammalleri for below market value and letting veteran leadership like Blake just walk away without even a contract offer, I think the Kings are hoping the fan base will be too focused on Heroes this fall to care.

Here it is.  Took some emails, talked about what movement we might see in the east, and some more Sharks trivia.

Also, I’m on deck to do a Kings preview sometime this week, so stick around for that.  If you want us to talk about something specific on the show, or you have feedback, email us.

This time around, Mike and Doug reprise the “Who’s Not Done” segment, but for the eastern conference.  But all isn’t rosy on the horizon- an email is addressed that questions the Sharks future defensive prospects.  At the end, more Sharks trivia, now becoming a regular part of the show.

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