Are the Sharks in trouble in the future
Recently I have been looking at our draft picks from the last 10 years or so.
The Sharks have only 1 (YES ONE) first round draft pick since 2007. That draft pick was Charlie Coyle a forward who made a lot of sharks fans excited, but was traded away last year along with Devin Setoguchi for a 2nd round pick for Brent Burns. (Sharks have also only picked 2 second round picks).
This means that we have no natural first round draft picks in our system since Logan Couture in 2007 (and just look how great that first round pick has played out).
In fact if you look all through our drafts of the last few years you find that many sharks picks have been going to other teams for past trades.
Why did the team do this, well as some people have speculated teams choose to gamble on certain years and build a good temporary team, or they can choose to build for the future.
We'll I have a feeling that this team could be in trouble in the next few years when the core of the team either re-signs or moves on (or in some cases retires) and the sharks have no one to fill in those spots.
Posted May 1, 2012, 6:43 PM UTC
The core of the team is under-achieving and probably not worthy of continuing to build around. Of course DW didn't know this when he mortgaged future talent for veteran guys during those years when it appeared the Sharks were knocking on the door of the Stanley Cup.
It's what any/every GM would have done in DW's position. Hindsight is 20/20 and DW has excelled at putting together excellent teams on paper. It place much less blame on him for the Sharks' playoff misfortunes than I do on the coaches and ultimately the players themselves. This team peaked from 2006 to 2009 and squandered many opportunities to win it all.
The lack of future talent in the organization would be much less painful had there been a Stanley Cup in under our belt. But DW bet the house on a horse that apparently couldn't run. Now likely begins the downward slide and the start of a rebuilding period.
Well as DW says rebuilding is not a part of his philosophy so don't look for the sharks to move all or most of there big names and start trading for draft picks. Plus most of our big names are locked down with No Trade Clauses, so DW is in a position of asking them politely to leave or make it really hard for them to refuse to stay. neither of which is likely to happen. What he can do is move Pavelski, Couture, Mitchell Braun, or Dejardins all of these players I like and would feel bad for letting them go. And no one is going to trade away something they value for these guys we will be lucky if we can anyone of worth for our troubles.
I wonder how much of the problems the sharks had was just a product of too many changes and just players not really gelling together. Execution was bad all year, so much standing around, passing off, pucks flying off of sticks.
Look at the LA Kings and the Flyers. They both revamped their lineups and are successful as a result. I don't buy that argument.
Your probably right.
I think there is enough of a "young core" with Pavelski, Couture, Vlasic, braun and Burns to rebuild the team quickly if we can make a few trades to significantly adjust our cap this offseason.
I think there will be a strong market for a player like Boyle who possesses a unique skill set and is a asset a lot of teams would like.
Marleau is tougher to trade because of his no trade clause but a team like Boston could be interested in him. They've got Brian Rolston's contract expiring after this year with a cap hit over $5 mil so they can take his contract.
Clowe is someone I'd look to put in a package deal to land a big star like Nash. You'd have to work in some other players as well but