Monday, July 20, 2009
Sharp to the Sharks?
Patrick Sharp is a lot of things to the Blackhawks - one of their most popular players, a dependable goal scorer and a leader in the dressing room.
Is expendable about to be added to that list?
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=307961&src=149
The most exciting Sharks rumor I've read all offseason, Patrick Sharp was key in the Hawks WCF run this postseason. Since both teams are hovering near the Cap, I would see the Sharks taking on salary here, and then dealing off one of their other top 6 forwards to make room for Sharp. Without further ado, here is my list of potential trades for Patrick Sharp.
- Cheechoo for Sharp, straight up- Just kidding.
- Cheechoo + Lukowich for Sharp- Adding Luko makes a world of difference here. He would give the Hawks the veteran presence their blue line is lacking, and Cheechoo may just need a change of scenery.
- Douglas Murray + prospect for Sharp- The Hawks want size at the blue line, and who is better suited for that than Doug Murray. The prospect is thrown in there to sweeten the deal since Sharp is more valuable player than Murray. The Sharks would likely make a trade after this one to replace Murray on D.
- Michalek for Sharp- The only one of my trades where the Sharks save money. Michalek is alot faster than Sharp, but Sharp is the more complete player. Hopefully Bowman would be blinded by Milan's speed and agree to this.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
The 4 Other New Sharks
We already know about Scott Nichols and Ryan Vesce, as the mainstream Sharks media has told mostly everything you need to know about Nichols and most Sharks fan were able to watch Vesce last year. I thought I'd look at the other 4 players who havent' garnered the same amount of attention from the media and fans. First off, let's look at Joe Callahan:
He won't produce many points, although I was slightly surprised with his 08 playoff points in Portland(1+12=13 in 18). He's fought 12 times since 04-05, so he'll protect his teammates when he has too, but it's not a common thing. With only 18 games of NHL experience, I think San Jose will see very little of this guy, and he was brought in for depth in Worcester.
Danny Groulx:
This 28 year old looks to be more depth for Worcester defensively. He hasn't played a game in the NHL, and that will probably look to continue. I don't see him playing in San Jose. He did put up 40 points last season for Rockford, but he hasn't done anything special since his days in the QMJHL.
Dwight Helminen:
With Dwight here we have a player who will probably spend half of the year in Worcester and half of the year in SJ. He has numbers in the AHL that say he should be semi-productive in the NHL, but in 23 games in Carolina he only had 2 points. I'd like to see Todd McLellan give him some top-6 forward time when he does play in SJ to just see if he can find some chemistry with some top line players. He seems to consistently put up what seems to be a little less that a PPG in each league that he has played for, and maybe he can find that in SJ. Extremely wishful thinking, but hey...
Jed Ortmeyer:
Jed will probably see the most playing time with SJ, after playing in the AHL most of last year after a knee injury. Not much of a scorer. At all. He'll be a pure energy player in the bottom-6. He came back from a blood clot in the brain several years ago, so he's tough. Other than that he seems to be a vanilla 3rd to 4th line player. He'll be 31 by the time the season starts, so he is one of the older players on the Sharks. We will see what he can do once the season roles around.
Labels: Harmon
Friday, July 10, 2009
One New Shark By Friday?
So here is my guess as to who the Sharks will sign this weekend: Scott Nichols.
So this morning, I decided to make my first blog post, but do to a misunderstanding on my part, I decided to do it later tonight. Well above is what I had before just now. Then I went back onto my computer and loaded up DP's blog, and I see that I was right. But oh well. I guess I'll just post this now. Because the site looks messed up anyways.
Labels: Harmon
Just how big will Wilson's "shakeup" really be?
GM Doug Wilson (Photo Courtesy of TSN)
Since our latest playoff debacle, we've heard a more aggressive-than-usual tone from both GM Doug Wilson and owner Greg Jamison. Both have sternly stood by a notion that we will see a lot of roster changes over the course of the offseason, but when one looks at the salaries of the current roster in relation to the salary cap, one must wonder how we're going to bring anyone new in. According to HockeyBuzz, we only have $1.3 mil to play with right now, fifth lowest in the league (and the bottom three teams are in the red). Don't get excited about that either. Sure, maybe we can sign some old guy who's nothing more than a run of the mill second line forward, but we currently have a hole at the goaltending position now that Brian Boucher has signed with Philadelphia.
So this brings up the question of what we're going to do with the #2 goalie spot. Common sense and Sharks' "build-from-within" mantra says we'll have a not NHL-ready yet Thomas Greiss (who still needs to be re-signed, which would likely kill a good chunk of that $1.3 mil) backing up Nabby this season. Throw the kid to the wolves and hope it goes better than last time I suppose. I know some of you are thinking "Wow, you're awfully hard on Thomas Greiss, what would you rather see instead?" Call me stuck in the past if you want, but our old buddy Nolan Schaefer is currently an unrestricted free agent. Last season he made only $600K with Minnesota. That would leave ~$650K or so which may or may not be enough to sign Greiss as well. Other goalies above $50k and below $1 mil who are available are: Jean-Sebastian Aubin, Craig Anderson, Curtis Sanford, Kevin Weekes, Curtis Joseph (Sega Genesis anyone?), Stephen Valliquette, Mikael Tellqvist and Marek Schwarz.
So that kills our remaining cap money and all we got is a backup goalie. A necessity for sure but not something that people are likely to get excited about. This is where trades come in. Personally, I feel that our most expendable players are Jon Cheechoo, Milan Michalek and fan favorite Christian Ehrorr-I mean Ehrhoff. Cheech has been less than stellar but has the 56 goal season of 2005-06 on his resume. Michalek, I don't know what else to say about this guy. Sometimes he's great, but a lot of the time, he's soft and inconsitent (though I do have to admit that he has toughened up a bit, I think he's run his course here). Lastly, the Ehrhoff experiment. Can anyone tell me when, outside of seasons with Olympic breaks, this experiment has been successful in any fashion whatsoever? What exactly is Ehrhoff's job? He doesn't check and his shot, though very hard, is very inaccurate. Still, I'm sure someone would take him. If there's a place for Matt Carle, there's definitely a place for Christian Ehrhoff.
I want to see a huge roster shakeup as much as anyone, but I just don't see how it's possible, unfortunately.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Welcome to Surely This Year
With the recent commencing of the free agent signing period, as far as I'm concerned, the new NHL season has unofficially begun. With that being said, we present to you Surely This Year, a blog dedicated to everyone's favorite playoff underachievers... of course, Surely This (is the) Year that all changes, right? We hope you join us throughout the season for our insight on all things Teal.
Labels: Introduction
August 2009 ///
October 2009 ///
November 2009 ///
December 2009 ///
January 2010 ///
December 2011 ///
