Small News Bytes

It's not contagious, is it?

 

The San Jose Sharks were back in the new again today as some of the ownership group and GM Doug Wilson had a little sit down with the press. It was announced that the club was 15 million in the red, season ticket renewals were about the same as the previous season and that, to no one's surprise, Todd McLellan will be back for his 5th season as the Sharks Head Coach.

 TSN also reported that the Sharks had signed a deal with Stuart, but DW said to hold up on before confirming that as the deal hasn't been finalized by the league yet. Really, like they're going to say no? The Sharks like to announce such things on their own terms, but it's obviously much harder to do that nowadays. Twitter often knows what's happening before the player's do. Not being able to effectively keep secrets is just part of the normal ups and downs of today's modern age.

With that cat out of the bag, though, what does this mean for some of the Sharks current DMen? The current theory is that is that Murray is on his way out. He's not a top 4 guy at this point, and while Stuart as a top 4 man is debatable, Murray is likely to get the Sharks a decent return. White HAS to be on his way out. He was a worthwhile experiment for a little while, but he's proven to be exactly what the Sharks don't need in a player and keeping him would go against DW's claim of wanting to improve. Demers might be trade bait, perhaps even Braun. It remains to be seen exactly what else DW will do this summer, but as it stands right now, the Sharks need a lot of work if they want to compete next season.

Addendum

Hey, when I draw a thing about Rick Nash, I should probably talk about Rick Nash. DW was on the radio today and of the many topics that came up, Rick Nash was one. While being very careful to not speak in specifics, Wilson said that for a player LIKE Nash, the price would be too high, indicating that the Sharks aren't looking at trying to nab him during the off season. Shortly after that, a tweet I can no longer find in my history indicated that the Sharks are in fact looking at Nash. Well, it just goes to show that in the summer, everything is possible until it's confirmed that it never happened.

Also discussed was the status of Niemifor the upcoming season. Wilson reminded everything that Nemo HAS a Cup ring for a reason, while ignoring that the reason was a really good blue line, and that he was the go to guy in net. He DID say that Greiss does have a chance to steal the job from Nemo, which may signal more playing time for the backup in the upcoming season. It may also signal nothing at all. If Nemo is still the go to guy in net, and not really considered part of the problem, I doubt Greiss see much more ice time than he did this past season.