Yep. Our D is so amazingly terrible, its hard to believe. Our clear #1 guy was a cast off that had negative value on his previous team. Great find and all, but really? Liljgren was a cast off healthy scratch. I can see why. none of the kids of thompson, thrun, or shak look great. Shak is starting to look like he belongs, but hardly shining just yet. Ferraro is capped out and clearly not it.
They need to add 2-3 top 4 Dmen, in their mid 20s, over the next year or two. I agree that Dick and the rest of the current system D cannot be counted on to be top 4 D. They might, but they might not, and even if they do, its likely at least 2-3 years before that happens at best. Another 3 years of dead last, and then having to resign smith, celly, and eklund after their ELC's is not a good recipe. They need to get some real blueliners so they can begin to be respectable and start climbing out of this hole.
This summer is another big test for grier. Once again, he has proven that he is respectable at getting rid of talent, getting some value for blackwood, grandlund, and ceci after the karlsson, meier, hertl, etc trades. But, he has yet to show himself capable of really ADDING talent. Wennberg for 5M? Kunin? Gundstrom? Dyllandrea? Kostin? Goodrow? Lindbom? Sturm? Liljgren?... He has excelled at largely overpaying for 3/4th liners or bottom pair D who couldnt get much a regular shift on their previous teams. Toffoli is the only player he has added to the organization who can actually play a top 6 role and walman is the only D who has shown a top 4 capability.
I get the idea of shedding talent to build up assets for a rebuild. But, at some point, you have to start going into talent acquisition mode? You dont mortgage the future for it, but you also cannot hope to add players off the trash heap, overpay them, and just pray that your kids will suddenly star. That is a recipe for indefinite bottom feeding and ultimately even losing your young stars 7+ years down the line as they hop ship to a much healthier and more enjoyable experience elsewhere. SJ has become a wholly unwanted desitination, and Grier has to change that.
p.s.: the sharks OT strategy is mindbogglingly dumb. Why are they so damn impatient??? In OT, when you get posession, you should NEVER give it up. even if you just play catch for 5 minutes. The whole key is patience, you speed up the ice, circle and make the other team chase you. Do that for 2 minutes but never shoot. Never force anything. Eventually, the other team will be exhausted from a 2+ minute shift running around chasing you. In the meantime, you change twice. Then you have fresh legs full of energy against an opposition that cannt move. it wont be long before you have a back door tap in. hell, even a great save is OK, because the opponent wont be able to do anything even if they get posession as they will be in full muscle failure and you will be fresh. Game after game, you see the sharks get posession in OT then try to immediately force something with somewhat low percentage. Sure, you get a shot, but then its saved and against a good team, you never touch the puck again. I am befuddled how dumb they are...
We've started talent acquisition mode? Tofolli, Wennberg, Askarov, Walman, Liljigren- that's a lot of value acquired in a year. I think repeating that this summer would be a home run.
Grundstrom, Dellandrea, Koistin, and Lindbolm were misses, though the first two are fine 12/13th forwards. Total cost was Burroughs, a 4th, 6th, and Simek. Lindbolm was an upside pick to try and steal a middle six forward, didn't work out. Who cares? In another world Delly is a home run, and Zetterlund is a miss. If you have 10 small deals like these and you get 1 win, and 2-3 pushes that's fine.
Really don't understand the issue with Wennberg. Top 200 for scoring among forwards. Plays center, pks (third duo) and is okay (48%) at faceoffs. While not particularly physical he's 6'2. We signed him for two years- two years in which we'll have $20M in cap space. Next year- if not extended- he'll bring back a second at the deadline. If we could sign three more Wennberg's next year, we should! He's also a leader.
The NHL isn't an equal market. Just because someone else gets a player in free agency or trade, doesn't mean that the Sharks can get them. Sometimes they can. However, if you want Grier to grab a guy in free agency, ask yourself a few things: 1) Would I still want this deal if we had to pay 10-20% more due to San Jose tax/cost of living (omitted for Chicago, NY, Socal, Can). 2) Does this player value winning in this contract? If so, SJ will probably be poor so how do we make up for that 3) Would I be willing to increase the term by 1-2 years (probably years where they will be worse, and have a larger cap hit than signed with different teams. In terms of trades, sometimes we won't have the right fit (Borgen RHD for Kakko- both would have been good fits, but we didn't have the pieces). No guarantee a 2nd pair D will be available for a fair price, or even a worth the overpay price.
I want the Sharks to grab a top 6 forward, a top 9 forward, backup 1A/goalie, good second pair RHD, and a 4/5 level RHD to push Liljigren down. However, is it realistic? Will it require a ridiculous deal i.e.
Marner- 7x$15.5M
Bennett/Ehlers- 7x$10.5M
Ekblad/Chychrun/Gavrikov- 7x$10M
Boseser- 7x$9.25M
Pionk- 7x$8.5M
Nelson/Granlund- 4x$8.5M
Kovacevic- 6x$7M
Fabbro- 5x$5.5M
Frederic/Evans- 4x$5M
Jake Allen- 3x$4.5M
Savard- 2x$3.75M
All of those contracts are going to be bad. I don't love any of those deals, but I'd probably do Gavrikov, even though I think he's a $7.5-8M d-man. $2.5M premium to grab a guy who could solve the #2-4 D-man for the next 5-6 years (years 6/7 may very well be bottom pairing). I might go for Frederic/Evans, Jake Allen, and Savard (he'd be overpaid by $1.5-2M each year) as well.
Our RHD is an embarrassment, but 25 teams will want a 2nd pair D this summer. We need two which means a guy like Savard (who's a good #6) might be what we have to settle on.
