a quick note on the sharks at the trade deadline…

woo-hoo!

I like the deals, all three of them.

Rivet for Gorges and parts.

Guerin for Niemmenen and parts.

And as I predicted, the Sharks traded a goalie, only it was Nolan Schaeffer, For two bags of pucks, more or less.

The two players off the roster: Gorges and Niemmenen. Gorges was a solid and amazingly hard working Defenseman, but showed himself at times to be outmatched. he tried, but he couldn’t always make it happen. He’s definitely a 5th or 6th D on pretty much any NHL team, but not much more. Rivet is clearly an upgrade, and the one weakness on the Sharks D was that when hannan or McClaren were out of the lineup, the kids struggled to take up the minutes. Rivet will help solve that problem from any number of dimensions, plus he’s a right shot, something we didn’t have. We dropped a 5-6 for a (more or less) 3 Dman, and didn’t give up much of the future to do so.

Niemenen was rapidly slipping off the depth chart (effectively, this year’s ‘Todd Elik’): you might as well have shipped off a Worcester kid for the impact on the Sharks locker room. And the futures here were moderate, much less than Atlanta paid for Tkachuk. That I find interesting, but Atlanta felt it had to make a move and couldn’t wait, so it paid a good price. the Sharks seemed to think that waiting would cause prices to moderate, and comparing what Tkachuk cost and what Guerin cost indicates to me they were right.

And Schaeffer lost a numbers game in San Jose, and now he has a chance to show if he’s an nHL goalie (his 5-0 record notwithstanding, the 7th round pick we got back indicates most NHL teams think “not”. Time will tell)

As a Sharks fan, I think it was a great set of deals — and a nice price. fun. no complaints, either on deals done, or not done.

Update: realize I forgot the Scott Parker to Colorado for parts trade. This has the feeling of “going home to retire as an Av” to me. Parker’s been injured more and more, and has been less and use used (and useful) to san Jose. I”m not sure what’s left in his tank, and I think this was a “thanks for all the fish” trade for Scott. I’ve got nothing but praise for Parker for what he brought to the team and how he set an attitude and work ethic for the team but he was sliding well off the depth chart, and the sheriff has gone home to ride off into the sunset.

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