Beginning of the End

March 8th, 2006 by ironsoap

So unless some dramatic last-minute push comes together for the Sharks and the Oilers have a meltdown of historic proportions, I don’t see the Sharks making the playoffs. So let’s talk next year.

We know Cheechoo and Nabby will be around. Marleau is here for a while and I’d be shocked if they dealt Thornton so soon. Who’s left?

Of the old guard I think you have to give Ekman at least one more year: The guy can be exciting if nothing else but I’d have him on a short leash. He’s there to score goals and if he’s not pushing 20 by mid-season, he can fetch a decent price on the market. Alyn McCauley, Mark Smith, Scott Hannan and Kyle McLaren ought to hang around if the management knows what’s what. But I’d be looking to deal Scott Thornton right away, maybe even this season (has the trade deadline passed already? I forget). I mean, the guy doesn’t even have twenty points yet. He’s a non-presence on the ice and that’s useless.

The newbies: There are a lot of these younger guys, but then again the Sharks are a young team. The key is to weed out the ones that have potential and let someone else deal with the ones that just aren’t going to make it. I say hang onto Milan Michalek, Grant Stevenson and Steve Bernier. They show a lot of promise, or in the case of Michalek, they’re already doing quite well for young guys. Doug Murray is a great hitter and a pretty effective defenseman.. I haven’t seen anything offensive from him but sometimes you just gotta have those guys that no one gets past. Jorges looks pretty good most of the time, too, although I suspect he (and some of the other younger players) could stand to have a really talented grizzled vet around to sharpen some of the edges on their games that coaches can’t always reach.

My primary trade bait would be Toskala (aka “The Flopper”), Scott Thornton, Ryane Clowe and Niko Dimitrakos. Clowe is just going to be one of those guys who has potential that is never quite realized and Dimitrakos… well, I thought for a while he might be another Marleau who was too streaky to be really great until he figured out the nuances, but now I just think he sucks. Toskala is a decent goalie but with the Sharks giving Nabby the long contract nod, I’d rather see Schaefer get the backup role and take what we could get for Toskala. There are a lot of teams out there with much worse goalie situations than the Sharks have and maybe they can spare an offensive-minded defender or a veteran third line winger.