Q&A! - Feb 18th. 2015

Q&A is a new blog by yours truly that is going to act as a mail bag of sorts that is going to be made up of questions that I have been asked or things that I notice on the blog that people are saying lots of things about but not knowing the answer.  If you have something you would like me to write about please send it to ian.blogs.sharks@gmail.com. 

Today's Question Usually I rephrase the question but this time I'm just going to leave it as is....

Hey Ian, I just wanted to say I love your blog! Just bumped into it through the Facebook page as I was reading your post-game review of the Sharks VS Preds game.

 I wanted to ask you about your thoughts on having Niemi on the table for the March trade deadline. You don't have to necessarily post this on your Q&A but I would love to hear some opinion on this! From some comments I've read off the FB group, I can see you're pro for keeping Niemi for the rest of the season in terms of it being a more suitable solution rather than tossing him out and having Stalock as a starter. Also, I wanted to know how you felt about other possible trades? Maybe Mike Green for example from the Caps as a boost to our d-line, and if we could even add on a defensemen, how that would come to play with exchanges from our own or losing a couple of draft picks? 

The Answer:

First thanks for the reads and thank you for the question even though I may be a bit snarky on the board at times it's never personal and I genuinely appreciate everyone that takes the time to read my blog even if it's to tell me its shit. 

Now for the question itself.  When I answer this question in other threads you have to have an idea of what we think the Sharks mindset is.  Now the only person who knows where all the bodies are buried in this case is Doug Wilson, a guy like me can only listen to what the man says and speculate my own conclusions.  A lot of people will tell you Doug Wilson laid it all out in the summer and we are only hearing what we want, the issue to me is Doug Wilson said a lot of things that frankly contradicted himself but the one thing that we seemed to hear more than anything else was that this team continues to get younger and it's supposed to be a playoff team while we inject younger talent.   Going by that statement I don't see how this team is a playoff team without Niemi, the Sharks are in tough to make it even continuing on as they are as all their rivals have games in hand and the Sharks losing more than they are winning.  So that is where that opinion comes from.

To play devil's advocate lets decide that Doug Wilson decides that he wants to sink the ship now, if that became the official case than my feelings would change based on that information.  If he wants to torpedo the team (too little too late in my opinion.) Than for sure you want to try and get something of value for Niemi and any other UFA but I still don't move them just to move them I want forward looking deals and picks.  Again though I like to keep my speculation grounded in some sort of reality based on  what we know, the NHL isn't NHL 15.

To answer the last part of your question the problem with a lot of guys that get named off like Mike Green in particular is that they are all UFA's at the end of the year meaning that San Jose can move assets to the Capitals to get him and he could not sign with us in the offseason meaning we lost all those assets for nothing even worse he could resign with the Capitals in the offseason a move like this could set the re-*enter buzz word here* back a year maybe two.  If I'm making deals especially for a big ticket guy I want to know that they are going to be here next year and beyond.  A good example of a player that I might look into is Ryan O'Reilly for example who has one year left on his ticket next year the cap hit isn't terrible and you have him for another year.

Last thing I'll say as an aside is that I'm not a huge fan letting Niemi go at this point at all if you can get him around for another few years at a decent amount of money that is the right play, our goalie pipeline sucks in my opinion as I'm not high on Groesnick or Stalock and especially not keen on the combination of the two being our rotation in San Jose the underlying numbers and age don't point to NHL success as starters which means that if I'm Doug Wilson I'm looking for a top flight goaltending prospect either by trade, Malcom Subban is a name that gets brought up that i'd at least roll the dice on or by draft this fall.... I'll write draft stuff closer to draft time so stay tuned.

I hope this answers your question, if you have any further fire away.  All comments are of course welcome.

If you want to read previous blogs please check out http://ianblogssharks.blogspot.ca