Friday, August 6, 2010

Tweaking the Defense

Niclas Wallin in the top 4? Say it ain't so.

Sadly, that is the predicament the Sharks would find themselves in if the season started today. The current setup would likely be something like this:

Dan Boyle ($6.666m) / Douglas Murray ($2.500m)
Marc-Edouard Vlasic ($3.100m)  / Niclas Wallin ($2.500m)
Kent Huskins ($1.700m) / Jason Demers ($0.543m)
Jay Leach ($0.500m)

While not abjectly terrifying, that defense setup still gives me the willies. The loss of Rob Blake, who even at his advanced age was a legitimately good second-pairing defenseman, cannot just be ignored, but most of the top tier UFA defensemen have already moved - Paul Martin and Zbynyk Michalek to Pittsburgh, Anton Volchenkov to New Jersey, Sergei Gonchar to Ottawa, Dan Hamhuis to Vancouver. Most of the second tier is gone too - guys like Kubina, Sutton, Zidlicky, Morris, Tallinder, Lydman, Grebeshkov, Seidenberg, Leopold. So what's left?

Let's examine a few options that still remain, after the jump.

1. Sheldon Souray
If the Sharks acquired Souray, it'd be like a repeat of last year's Heatley saga - disgruntled star player (and yes, Sheldon Souray is a star when he's healthy) with large contract demands a trade, and San Jose obliges after nobody else takes advantage. Souray is a legitimate top-pairing defenseman in the NHL, and while people like to decry his $5.4 million contract, I don't actually think it's that drastic an overpayment. If he was UFA in this year's class, I might peg him just slightly below a guy like Gonchar, who got 2 years x $5.5 million. Souray has a laser beam from the point, and people forget that he is actually quite a good defensive defenseman as well - in fact, back in his Montreal days, he was known as a rough-and-tumble DEFENSIVE specialist, not an offensive powerhouse (and he can still throw down). In any case, not many in Sharkland criticize Dan Boyle for his defensive play, and it's unlikely that Souray would do much worse.

The only question is what it'd take to get him. We know from his time on the waiver wire that no team is willing to pick up his full $5.4 million salary for the next two years. While that implies many things, I do not think it implies that Souray has no value at all. What it does mean is that the teams interested in Souray don't have $5.4 million in cap space to spend all at once - likely, it means that some pieces will need to go the other way, straight salary dumps or otherwise. Lucky for the Sharks, getting the Setoguchi deal done for $1.8 million gives them quite a bit of cap flexibility - over $3.3 million free at the moment, with a full roster of 20 sure NHLers set to go.

I think a plausible scenario would be something like Souray for Kent Huskins and Torrey Mitchell. Huskins is a serviceable bottom-pairing defenseman with a large expiring contract, and Mitchell has been made more or less expendable with the emergence of Logan Couture and the re-signing of Joe Pavelski. San Jose might also have to throw in a draft pick, maybe a 2nd or 3rd rounder. Given that the Oilers already have Andrew Cogliano, I'm unsure whether they'd be interested in Mitchell, but it's interesting to think about anyway.

2. Kim Johnsson
Assuming he won't make anything near the $5.3 million he made last year (and you have to think that the price tag is rapidly falling as the summer wears on), Johnsson would be a fantastic pickup. He's played quite well in legitimate #1 pairing minutes (almost 24:00 per game) over the last few years, and is only 34 years old. Things didn't really work out for him in Chicago after the Cam Barker swap, and I assume that he'd jump at the opportunity to play for a contender. Nobody really knows what happened to him (he was ostensibly concussed, but given that he was nowhere to be found on any roster whatsoever during the playoffs I don't buy that for a second), but assuming he wasn't a huge locker room problem he'd make a fine addition. He's not quite the offensive force that he was in Philadelphia, though I suspect the move to Minnesota's system may have had something to do with that, but he can still be relied upon for mobility, offensive instinct, and a good first pass. He had 3 points in 8 games and a +7 with Chicago last year before he mysteriously disappeared off the face of the planet, so he's clearly still got it. I might describe him as a slightly-poorer man's Tomas Kaberle, and the Sharks wouldn't even have to give up any assets for him. It seems like he's a forgotten man, but I like him a lot.

3. Willie Mitchell
Mitchell is just the victim of a numbers game - squeezed out of Vancouver by the sudden glut of second-pairing defensemen there (seriously, just think about it - Ballard, Edler, Ehrhoff, Salo, Hamhuis, and Bieksa are all guys you'd be happy to have on your second pair, but would be a little worried to play 25 minutes a night). He's also a huge injury risk - he hasn't played since January due to a concussion, and anyone who was around to see the sad spiral of Eric Lindros' career knows how tricky those can be. Still, when he's healthy, Mitchell is a rock defensively - physical, positionally sound, makes smart plays - and would be a fine complement to Vlasic as the Sharks' shut-down pairing, somewhat akin to Philadelphia's Coburn-Timonen pair. Whether he can stay healthy is another matter entirely, but if the Sharks can arrange for a bonus-heavy contract with a low base salary, Mitchell is super attractive. Plus, it doesn't hurt that Sportsnet has recently reported that Mitchell has narrowed his choices down to four teams, one of which is the Sharks; that report indicates to me that there may be a little bit more than just idle speculation behind this one.

The Consquences:
Picking up one of these players means that the Sharks would be carrying 8 defensemen. Of them, I think it's pretty safe to say that Boyle, Vlasic, and Demers aren't going anywhere due to their value to the organization, and Wallin isn't going anywhere either because of his NMC. Demers' extension indicates to me that the Sharks want to bring him along, meaning that he's likely locked down a regular shift on the third pair at the very least. That leaves Huskins, Leach, and Murray floating around as potentials to get moved. The Sharks could demote Leach to the minors, but I doubt they would be happy with sitting Huskins or Wallin down as the #7 while paying them $1.9 and $2.5 million, respectively. I'm hoping that it'll be Huskins, but increasingly I've come to suspect that Douglas Murray is the only one of that bunch with any value at all, and that he might not be long for his teal sweater. I think he's slightly overpaid at $2.5 million, but he brings a valuable dimension to the defense as well and I hope he isn't moved. Still, if Huskins has no value (and nothing leads me to believe that he will), Murray may well be the odd man out. Complicating matters further is Derek Joslin's 1 year, $500K, 2-way deal. If this is his last shot at a roster spot in San Jose, he'll need playing time, and I'm just not sure where it comes from.

One option would be for McLellan to sit Demers down as the 7th defenseman and demote Leach, but I think that would be quite foolish - a defense with Wallin, Huskins, and Murray on it would be ungodly slow, and it would stifle Demers' development as well. Or, McLellan could just dress 11 forwards and 7 defensemen all the time, as he did at times last year, leaving Leach as a scratch and letting McGinn-Couture-Mitchell and Nichol-Mayers-(x) handle things from the bottom of the forward corps. I think this is more likely to happen, and is probably also smarter, as both Demers and Huskins can probably pass for fourth-line forwards when McLellan isn't double-shifting his stars down there.

I just realized that I mentioned both Setoguchi and Mayers without having talked about their new deals on here previously, so I'll be sure to take care of that soon.

Until next time!

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