Sharks Crumbling, Rantanen Traded, Who’s Next? (Ep 236)

[@PrinceSquigglyMcPantaloons]

I missed the live show but here's my thought on Askarov: Send him back the the Cuda. He's shown enough to start next year. Let him try and win an AHL Championship while we try for another 1st overall.

[@JackDaniel-t7l]

Agree.. get him playoff games and All Star game

[@RaiderSavage007]

50-60 starts next season (no injuries)

[@prosperfireson]

Hey Fellas, Sorry. I had a senior moment and totally lost track of my days. The bell notification doesn't work real well for me because I don't check my emails obsessively and I don't use my phone for email. So I am taking the show in after the fact in abscentia (sp? I don't even know what that means I just felt like saying it. hehehe). I have a couple of thoughts because talking to me is like standing in front of a fire hose so of course I do. hehe I do agree that Granlund is probably the most prized Shark available right now. However, I think Ceci and Walman have made a decent case for themselves as well. If I remember right we have Walman for term and his contract is commensurate to his value so he would be a bit harder for teams to take on if I am right? Ceci is in his final year of his contract I think and while he makes a decent amount like Walman he would be a rental with a goodly amount of experience. I think the argument for making trades well before the trade deadline makes all the sense because we know how hard it is to integrate new players usually into a new team. Totally agree Aaron that Ferraro is 3rd pairing defensmen. If you acquired him from us and tried to use him in any other capacity you will be disappointed. Personally I hope Mario is traded. He has been a good Shark but, he deserves the opportunity to play for a better franchise right now and on our team we are putting him regularly in a situation that he cannot consistently fulfill and meet expectations. More on expectations in a minute. My list of trade assets we currently have that might be sought by other teams in no particular order: Granlund Kunin Sturm Ferraro Walman Ceci Rutta Honorable Mention Thrun (possibly) Not: I am not advocating to trade any of these players Paul I can hear you yelling at me already! hahaha I would prefer to see most of these players to remain in San Jose. These are just the guys who other teams I think would be interested in. I once asked you guys and the other fans in the chat if we were expecting too much of most of our players (I think it was last season)? I think we absolutely are. Is this Grier's frustration in his career that he was always relegated to the bottom 6 and he felt like he could have been a 2nd liner if given a proper chance? Maybe. In Grier's case unfortunately for him he seems to have been stuck in limbo where he was a little too skilled for the bottom 6 but, not quite consistently skilled enough to hold down a 2nd line spot. He was a tweener. I might add that I like Grier a lot now and was very much a fan of him as a player and was really glad when the Sharks acquired his services both as a player and GM. That said whether this is a deep seeded thing with Grier or not he does seem to be looking for bottom 6 forwards and bottom 4 defensemen who can jump the shark and prove themselves to be more than others had thought them capable of like Granlund did. I like that idea if that is his modus operandi? That said, I do think the flip side of this approach is that if you subscribe to this approach AND the players you target to do this fall short of your hopes then be definition those players are being expected to do too much. A gross example of this would be Barkley. He is a 4th line player and he has shown clearly that he does not have the ability to even be effective as a 3rd liner let alone playing alongside Maclin! Right now and last season we have an excess of bottom 6 NHL forwards and an excess of bottom pairing defensemen. The difference this year over last year is we have fewer players at any given time on the roster who are AHL caliber players. Last year we had a number of AHL level players holding down a regular spot and it was ugly. Its one thing to call up the occasional AHLer as a reward to check their progress for the franchise and the player to see. It is another thing to ask AHL level players to hold a regular spot. This season mostly we are featuring bonafide NHL level players just too many at the lowest level of skill which makes it unreasonable to ask those caliber of players to step up to the higher levels (top 6 and top 2 pairings) and succeed. Furthering that argument you could also argue that now that Blackwood is gone we are expecting too much of our goalies particularly when you consider how ineffective we are defensively in our own zone and in particular down low in our zone. The goalies we feature right now are good NHL back ups. At some point I am very hopeful that Askerov will be much more than that exceeding even average starting NHL goalie level of play. Anyway, that said I do think we are expecting too much of this roster almost to the same level as last years roseter though not quite. Lastly, (sorry boys for going on and on), I think those two Predators games exposed two things. One the Preds are not good in their zone. We are a team that has consistently struggled to produce offense and we can see that by our goals per game average. But, the Preds gave up 5 goals against us in back to back games! It looks to me like the Preds are all in on offense right now and are no longer focusing on defense first. In the case of the Sharks I am wondering if the Sharks lack of offense earlier was in part due to Coach Wars focusing on getting the guys familiar with the defensive structure he wanted them to play and that now he has the guys at least familiar with what he wants defensively he has shifted his focus into creating more offense at even strength? It will be interesting to see if as we go forward the Sharks slump in offensive output like against Florida or if they are able to put in 3 plus goals more consistently? Apologies again guys for blathering on like that. hahaha For the Fin Factor this has been your roving reporter in the Central Valley. Hahaha!! Peter St. John Clovis, CA