Man, there’s a lot to discuss from the past two pages…
Wilson wins:
* Thornton, Burns, Boyle trades were simply incredible.
*Toskala and Kipper delivering Vlasic abd Couture
* Decades of performance from Vlasic, Braun, Clowe, and Pavelski. A strong middle of the team from a 2nd/4th/4th/7th. They also stayed for a long while (too long in one case).
* Selling high on Wishart, Setoguchi, Doug Murray, and Brad Stuart, somehow producing 4 2nds and 2/3rds of 2 top pairing dmen
*The two bests centers in Hertl’s draft year (him and Tierney)
*DW Jr. ‘s only win on finding desperately needed depth from underrated European FAs (Donskoi primarily, but also Simek, Karlsson, and Sorensen)- along with Eklund, and maybe Norris/Ferraro, Jrs only win.
*Blake, Martin, Ward, Malhotra, Nichol, and Mayers as UFAs. Both Ward and Martin’s last years were awful, but they were good and needed pieces for most of their contract.
*Braun/vlasic/Couture/Hertl/Pavs/Burns/Jumbo/Marleau spent a lot of time underpaid.
*Heatly trade wasn’t great, but it was okay.
*Also how’d we get Dillon? He was a great shark, can’t even remember acquisition cost…
*Hialmmarsson offer sheet. Shook loose Niemi who was only average, but at $2M he was worth it, and it hurt a rival (even though they won with Crawford anyway).
Consistent frustrations:
*Questionable overpaying at the deadline for mediocre pieces (Rivet, Guerin, Moen/Huskins, Campbell, Wallin; to a lesser degree Polak- not sure we get past blues without him).
*Incessant waste of picks to trade up for guys who didn’t work out. This was compounded by weird trades for depth pieces we didn’t need.
*Wasted a non-insignificant amount of cap space on shit players that had to be hits because our bottom 5-67 pieces needed to be league minimum- Melker, Wallin, etc.
Three other errors that sank the team:
*Jones contract- it was signed a year early, but his subsequent year would have only made it worse. Combined with goalie equipment changes this deal sunk the sharks. He was never that good, but giving up a late first for him on his first sharks contract was fine.
*Vlasic’s contract- he finally got paid what he was worth, unfortunately he hasn’t had more than one year of being worth it since.
*Giving up a conditional 1st for Kane when it was rumored no one else was involved. It should have been two seconds or we should have passed.
Without Kane, Vlasic, and Jones you probably could have refreshed the team, but $20M on those three was rough.
At the time, I loved the Karlsson deal (less so the signing, but I was fine with it. It ended in catastrophe, but it was worth it to give the core one more shot.
TLDR: Sharks were a contender for decades because Wilson made a few really good moves, the sharks somehow got years and years of excellence from like seven home run draft picks, and Thornton and Marleau inspired a culture of stars taking less than market. Unfortunately so many small moves were off.
Imagine if Grier and Morehouse produce the equivalent of Vlasic, Clowe, Braun, and Pavelski at some point in their first decade with non-1sts? Wouldn’t even need big trades.
All that being said, just want to say, I’m really, really glad Grier is steering the ship.
