Rating the Offseason, Part 1 - Player Retention

Since I haven't yet written about the moves (and there were quite a few) that Doug Wilson has made so far this offseason, I figured that now would be as good a time as any. Part 1 will focus on player retention - guys who had contracts in San Jose last year and were re-upped, whereas Part 2 will focus on new signings and players who were let go. That leaves us with:

Part 1 -
Patrick Marleau
Joe Pavelski
Devin Setoguchi
Niclas Wallin
Jason Demers

Part 2-
Evgeni Nabokov
Rob Blake
Manny Malhotra
Jamal Mayers
Antero Niittymaki

Straight into the analysis, after the jump.

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.