The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 372: Rebuilding the Sharks

Episode Date: December 4, 2020

Sheng Peng joins the show to discuss why the San Jose Sharks suddenly find themselves in uncharted waters, what caused their nightmarish 2019-20 season and where the issues started, plus how they can ultimately get things back on track to prevent this from becoming the new normal for the organization. Topics include: 2:00 The price of being good for a long time 12:00 Death by 1000 cuts in summer of 2019 20:00 How they can fix things heading into next season 26:00 Separating goalie performance from defensive system 41:00 Running the offense through Brent Burns 46:00 Erik Karlsson's impact and availability 52:30 Marc-Edouard Vlasic's recent decline 1:03:00 The franchise's agenda moving forward Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Are you ready for the most ridiculous internet sports show you have ever seen? Welcome to React, home of the most outrageous and hilarious videos the web has to offer. So join me, Rocky Theos, and my co-host, Raiders Pro Bowl defensive end, Max Crosby, as we invite your favorite athletes, celebrities, influencers, entertainers in for an episode of games, laughs, and of course the funniest reactions to the wildest web clips out there. Catch React on YouTube, and that is React, R-E-A-X-X. Don't miss it. This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light.

These days, everything is go, go, go. It's nonstop hustle all the time. Work, friends, family, expect you to be on 24-7? Well, sometimes you just need to reach for a Coors Light because it's made to chill. Coors Light is cold-loggered, cold-filtered, and cold package. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. It is literally made to chill. Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind.

So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. In 2003, Nike signed 13-year-old Freddie Adieu to a seven-figure contract. But Freddie didn't live up to the hype. He has turned down every single documentary project looking closely at the details of his career. Until now.

People are going to look at everything you did because of the hype surrounding your arrival and what they think you can be. I'm Grant Wall. And this is American Prodigy, Freddie Adieu, from Blue Wire Podcasts. Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast. With your host, Dimitri Philibyliby. Welcome to the... hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Villapovich and joining me is my buddy Shang Pang. Shang, what's going on, man?

Hey, not much, man. Just hanging in there. Hanging in there indeed. We're going to deep-dive the sharks today. We're going to, technically, it's part of the rebuildable series that I've been doing this off-season on the PEDO cast where we're looking at teams that fail to qualify for the playoff bubble, which seems like ages ago now already. But the sharks technically qualify for that because they were one of the seven teams that didn't make it but it really feels like they uh they're deserving of their own uh separate series because it feels weird to lump them in with teams like the senators and the red wings and the sabers which we're

doing on the show but they're one of those seven so they qualify and we're going to talk about uh kind of all the issues of how they got here what went wrong what they've been doing and uh options moving forward to help fix things so uh let's uh let's get right into it um where do you want to start this conversation in terms of like where things went wrong how they got here how far do you want to take the timeline back because obviously it does feel like you know with a team like the red wings for example that i did a show with with prescient we were talking about how you could stretch it back decade and how it's all been culminating towards this massive rebuild that they're doing with the shark's team it feels like you can only really take it back one year because they were two games

away from making the standle like a final in the 2019 both season sure sure but first yeah i got to say that there's a place you know that special place that you say the sharks are uh between uh where the red wings of senators are and between a playoff team that's called purgatory and that might be the worst place to be in but anyway if we're going to talk about what we bring it back to actually though i would go back a little further yes indeed they were close to making it to the final in 2019 but if we want to go back to 2014 and 15 and That's the first time that a Doug Wilson managed team had missed the playoffs. And that team, a lot of people thought, if we look back on it, a lot of people thought that

that team was, okay, well, Joe Thornton was in his mid-30s at that point. Joe Pavelski was in his 30s. Marlowe was same age as Thornton. And so people thought that team is done, right? The Sharks Window was done. That's what everybody was saying in 2014-15. And during that off season, Wilson made a number of key signings. He signed Joel Word.

He traded for Martin Jones, signed Paul Martin. Nothing that, you know, nothing too long term there. The longest deal there was Paul Martin out of 40 years. But those are the kind of deals that if they hadn't worked out, the sharks could have got away from. And if they, yeah, if they did work out, which it did work out because the sharks made it to the final that year of 2016. They surprised everybody. But I think what happened, though, with that, though, is that after that, the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. So before the. was they gave a six-year contract to Milan Mahalik in early 2000s,

but Mahalik was a 22-year-old player at that time, so that kind of made sense, though. But otherwise, though, guys like Thornton, guys like Marlowe, guys like Pavelski, had all signed three, four-year contracts, good contracts, but nothing that would break the back if any of them had a sudden decline. After the 2016 cup run, though, they signed up Brent Furr, who was about to become a UFA and had a terrific 2015-16, you know, changed his narrative,

because before that, before 2015-16, there were still talk, well, he's better as a forward. What he's doing on defense? But 2015-16, he solidifies himself as a defenseman. He's a Norris finalist under Peter DeBore for the first time. He's about to hit UFA November 2016. And so they signed him to an eight-year contract, a max contract. And I think, you know, everyone starts looking at that, well, this is an organization that had been steadfast and not handing out such contracts, especially to an older player. Burns was in his 30s at that point. And contract's going to end. Contract is scheduled to end when Brent is 40. But guys like Vlasek came up right after that. And Blasick was signed to an eight-year contract. Of course, they trade for Eric Carlson. They gave him eight years. And then it doesn't just extend a defenseman, too. You traded for Evander Kane. And they gave him a seven-year contract. And then, of course, Logan Couture ate your contract.

So in terms of how they got into this position, like a lot of teams, you get into this position because you're winning and you're winning. But at some point, though, you know, you sort of have to pay the Piper. And, you know, in some ways, you know, it's kind of funny to look back on it. But getting close in 2016 may have sort of kind of started this sort of path of signing guys a long-term contract. and kind of the purgatory that the sharks find themselves in. And if they had missed, and, you know, if they had, after 2014-15, when they missed the playoffs, if they had kind of, you know, fallen off after that point, like a lot of people predicted, you know, maybe we'd be looking at a whole kind of brand-new shark situation.

Right. Yeah, their books right now are currently littered with seven-and-eight-year deals, and all those players basically have either full-momu clauses in the case of Eric Carlson or like three team lists that they can be traded to for pretty much everyone else. And I don't know, part of that leads into why it feels a little bit unsatisfying from my perspective. Obviously, you know, the run that they made to the cup final when they lost their penguins was very impressive. And they were a really good team. And they were awesome in 2018, 19 when they made their run as well.

But unlike teams like, say, the LA Kings or the Chicago Blackhawks where you look at their cap-friendly page and it's, you know, they're saddled. They're kind of stuck in that purgatory too because they have so much money tied up in old players. at least you can justify it with, well, we have two cups to show for it in LA's case. We have three cups to show for it in Chicago's case. Whereas for San Jose, there's certainly a long stretch of sort of continued excellence where they've only missed the playoffs twice, I believe, in the past 21 seasons or so. But they never got over that hump. So it's really tough to kind of justify and look at that reality of the best days being behind them and then being stuck with this current group considering that. well we have a joe thornton's cock jockey show for it that's true that's true we do have the rooster

no you're right um well and and i guess you know this is going to be such an interesting podcast i'm really looking forward to doing this one with you as we keep going here because it does feel like it's sort of fertile ground from you know i've been talking about all these teams that are in your classic rebuilds where by design they went into last season expecting to be bad and they typically have young players the sharks kind of have no real parallel right now now where, you know, they clearly didn't expect to be in this position. And we know that because they didn't even have their first round pick. So they certainly weren't prepared to be there.

But there's also this big cloud hanging over where trying to prognosticate what things are going to look like heading into next season. And that's what we're going to try to accomplish here. It's really tough. There's no real certainty. You can certainly take an optimistic view and say, okay, they're going to be healthier. You know, they still have talent. Everything's going to come together.

And potentially they can squeeze out another run here. but at the same time there's so many red flags and so many question works still lingering after last season that it's i i don't really know how to approach that question of what does the immediate future look like for this organization heading into next season yeah it's definitely a really cloudy i did want to go back to the point about you know kind of everything the sharks put into it everybody they signed and it feels like uh maybe they you know it wasn't worth it because they didn't come out with the cup but of course you know as as you know getting that cup is just so elusive and so difficult.

And so I can't really fault the sharks were trying as hard as they did. And just even though they only have one final to finish to show for it, but they have a decade of teams that could have won it. And it's just, you don't always win it. And so anyway, just on that point. But to go back to, I guess, next season, yeah, definitely so very cloudy. There are good scenarios where the guys who were off track last year, Carlson and Burns and all those guys find their game and the team is sort of a

you know like a fringeish playoff team I think one one comparable might might be the 20 is speaking of a team that want that you know that went all in and won a cup the kings a good parallel might be the 2018 19 kings where I think uh you know 2017 18 the kings had a pretty good season right they made it to the playoffs they lost in the first round to the golden nights uh Copatar and dowdy had MVP Norris caliber seasons, et cetera, et cetera. Their big signing that offseason was Ilya Kovachuk, three years. And, you know, they thought that, oh, that might be kind of that last piece, you know,

bringing in that 25, 30 goal scorer. That might give this group one last run. And so what happened to the sharks this past season, you know, the sharks had even more success than that King's team. The sharks made it to the conference finals. You know, they re-signed Eric Carlson eight years. They signed Team O'Meer for four years, and you kind of think, oh, yeah, you know, this team has the elements of maybe another run.

They did lose a lot of players during the offseason like Joe Pavelski, but you still think, though, with that core of Carlson and Couture and et cetera, et cetera, that this team is not that far from it. And, of course, it just sort of fell apart this season. So anyway, that's one one, one comp. Well, yeah, you're right. Back to the point you were making there about the contracts and how hard it is to win on Stanley Cup, you're right.

But the ultimate goal is to accrue as much good play. as you can and put yourself in a position to get lucky, basically, in the playoffs, and win it all and have some of the show for it. And we certainly, I think, sometimes mess up in terms of, like, putting too much emphasis on that. And basically 30 teams are failures. One team is successful because they won the cup, and that's how we wind up looking at it in hindsight.

But you're right. There's certainly nothing wrong with these past 20 years or so of sharks consistently being in the playoffs. And I think making the West Finals four of the past. nine seasons before last year. But so let's let's kind of recap the year that they did have then because it is such a season from hell and almost everything that could have gone wrong did. For those that don't remember because it's been so long ago now, they had a 29, 36, and

five record. That was the worst point percentage in the West. They had a minus 45 goal differential, which actually kind of inflates and makes them look better than they were because their penalty kill was amazing. I think no one gave up fewer goals per minute than they did there. but at 5-on-5, only the Red Wings, who were a historically dreadful 5-on-5 team had a worse goal differential. So that kind of just shows how things bottomed out there. Carlson, Couture, and Hurdle were all out for significant periods of time.

They sold what they could at the deadline, getting picks back for, you know, Goodrow and Marlowe and Dillon. They wound up in the third draft slot and didn't even get to make that pick because the senators owned it from there, Carlson, we're going to talk a lot about Carlson and that trade here in a bit. But, you know, when I was thinking of like where this started or where it went back, I guess, you know, for me, I remember in the off season in 2019, I sort of thought that the sharks came out like bandits a little bit or as good as they could have all things considered because they avoided anyone sort of offer sheeting Tim O'Meer or Kevin LeBank and really making things even more difficult for them. They were able to retain both guys. But I think maybe if I look back at it now, we might have undersold just the sort of. death by a thousand cuts approach where they lost unis don's score they lost gustav nyquist they lost gustav naikwist they lost justin brawn they obviously lost joe pevelsky and when you start to bleed that much talent um you know it might have we might have just not given that enough credit how much of

impact that would sort of lead to this team and maybe that explains why uh their performance did drop off the way it did last year right and concurrently you know we talked about all the uh long-term contracts and you know how the sharks got where they were and how the contracts make it hard for them to get out of where they are. But at the same time, too, over the last few years, their draft picks haven't really been hitting yet. And some of that goes back to, you know, if you go back to, like, let's see, looking back to 2013, the, the Sharks draft. And from that point on, the Sharks have not had a lot of successful, a lot of guys come in and really hits, especially in the later picks. And of course, you can't blame the sharks

full before that. Later picks, the sharks were in a position because they were winning a lot that a lot of their picks were not early, so they didn't get the, you know, the primo talent. But if you look back over the last eight years, the only real late round impact draft pick was

Kevin LeBank. And Kevin LeBank was a sixth rounder in 2014. And then the few first round picks they've had, looking back 2013, 2014, Miracle Miller, Nikolai Godobin. These are later first round picks.

These aren't lottery picks, but still, these are guys that you would hope one of these guys would hit. Of course, 2015, they did a great with Tim O'Meyer that won lottery pick. But if you look then, since then, and none of these guys have really, you know, 2016, Gambro, Greger, Blickfeld. And these guys may make an impact. Yeah, these guys are decent prospects, but they haven't, though.

And so one of the sea changes, of course, for the Sharks' ender drafting was in 2017, Doug Wilson Jr. took more of a hand, you know, kind of is now kind of a two-headed monster with him and Tim Burke. And we've seen a lot more positive reviews of Sharks' picks since then, since 2017. And a guy like Josh Nores looks like he's going to be

a pretty good player for the Senators. Mario Ferraro was actually a very good defenseman for the Sharks this past season. And so maybe we'll start to see kind of of the benefits from those picks. But we haven't seen them yet, though. And so anyway, in terms of what happened now, going back to the Sharks last offseason

and losing Don Skoy, losing Pavelski, and all those guys. So what happens is that you lose kind of your death from that Western Conference final team. And, you know, one of the marks of that death was the Sharks had 950-point scores on that 2018-19 team, nine of them. And the closest team to that was,

It's the Bruins. The Bruins at five. And I know points aren't an exact way to, you know, show anything, but it just kind of shows how deep that Shark's team was. But then you lose guys like Nyquist and Bevelsi. Those are two of your 50-point scores there. You start to lose that depth. And you have nobody coming up young that can kind of even start to make up for the lack

of reduction there. And then you kind of see what happens for this, for this 2018-19 team. And then guys like Joe Thornton who were so good in 2018-19 This past season not so good And guys get hurt And then you don't have space to sign anybody Because you resign Eric Carlson to a maximum pretty you know You make the highest paid defense men in the league

And so it just becomes you know like you said everything went wrong there Not only they have 950 point players I had that in my notes as well but Carlson had 45 points in 53 games So he was right well in his way there as well and to put that in perspective this year obviously acknowledging that they only played 70 games, so they fell short by 12, and, you know, Timom Meyer would have gone there. Timom Meyer led the team with 49 points this season. So at the end of the day, they didn't have a single 50-point guy in those 70 games,

whereas the year before, they were just this kind of well-oiled juggernaut that could basically roll their entire lineup. And so, I don't know, as we spin things forward, you know, it does still feel surreal because at what point in the season for you covering the team did you really have to pivot because I remember at the start of the year, they came out sputtering out of the gate, and it felt like we were all kind of doing this song and dance where we were like almost paralyzed by fear to make any sort of bold proclamation. So we were just waiting for them to realize their potential or I guess our preseason expectations of them to rip off a winning streak and get

back on track. And then at some point, you eventually had to realize that it wasn't happened, especially considering that it wasn't like they were unlucky. It was also that the underlying numbers suggested that their performances had significantly dropped off. But what point? in the year for you, did you sort of reach that moment where you could kind of confidently say that it just was not going to happen in 2019-20? I think sometime after they fired Pete in January or so, and you just kept waiting for Eric Carlson to really, you know, come back and be Ottawa-Earra Carlson, even Eric Carlson that they signed to the eight-year contract, even with Eric Carlson, who in 2018-19, for a couple

months there was, you know, possibly the best player in the world. in a December or January stretch when he was healthy. You kept waiting for that to happen and it just, you know, he'd show like a period, a shift here or there, but just wasn't going to happen. So that was problematic. Also, too, you kept kind of hoping that, well, somebody would emerge from this cast of young players

to kind of, you know, not be a star. Nobody was expecting a Dylan Gambrell, for example, to be a first-line player. But, you know, we're hoping that one of these guys could play solid, third line top nine minutes. I bet they were. And so in terms of that kind of, yeah, I think you do, you to capture a right that when you look at the guys' track record on this team, the Star is hurdle, Carlson, et cetera, et cetera, you keep waiting for something to turn around and just never did. But I do have to say, though, that I, even though it wasn't until like

January or so, I just knew that this team wasn't going to go anywhere, that even during the, even during the summer when they didn't sign anybody to replace the Don Skoy, the Pavelsies, et cetera, that that was already looking kind of dangerous because their young players from what I had seen, their young prospects, did not look ready to step in. And I went to the rookie games that September. And it was a tournament that they held or that was the Pacific Division teams, teams like Arizona, Vegas, et cetera, et cetera, before the season. and there was an Anaheim and talking to scouts there

and a lot of the the sharks prospects guys that they hope would step in step in guys like chimaleski checkovich guys like that guys that they sort of hope maybe they would make an impact this year I was watching talking with a lot of scouts and all the scouts were saying the same thing I don't know what Doug Wilson is thinking here like this group this group of young players not that they don't have talent but you know these do not look like guys were ready to step in And so that was probably the point where I should have probably been more like, yeah, you know, like I see the same thing.

These young players aren't going to step in. So if these young players don't step in and you get drop off from the older players, which you did get, then what's going to happen with this team? Well, you know, we saw what happened. Yes, we did. All right. We're going to take a quick break here, hear from some sponsors, and then we're going to keep up this conversation on the other end of things. 2020 has really forced us all to reshape the way we work and try to become more efficient in the process, whether it is. is having Zoom meetings on a daily basis or working remotely from home or if you're running

the PDO cast watching and rewatching old games as opposed to new ones because there's nothing currently to talk about. We've all had to make adjustments to become more efficient. Fortunately, for businesses out there that are looking to make the most of their hires moving forward, Indeed is here to help. Indeed, it's the number one job set in the world with more total visits than any other job site. They help you find quality candidates quickly so you can focus on hiring the person you need to keep your business going. And unlike other job sites, Indeed gives you full control and payment flexibility over your hiring. You only pay for what you need. You can pause your account at any time and there are no long-term contracts.

I think the NHL could use something like Indeed. Think about Benmonton Oilers, for example, who for some reason decided to come back this following year with Miko Koskenin and Mike Smith and Nett. If they had had something like Indeed to use, hopefully they would have been able to find a better candidate that would have been more suited to their needs and they would have addressed the big opening they have a net. So that's just something to consider. But Indeed's new way of matching you with candidate instantly delivers a short list of quality candidates whose resumes on Indeed match your job criteria that you can contact the moment

you sponsor a job, which makes Indeed the only job site that can move as fast as you do. And right now, Indeed is offering our listeners a free $75 credit to boost your job post, which means more quality candidates will see it fast. So try Indeed out with a free $75 credit at Indeed.com slash Blue Wire. This is the best offer available anywhere. Go right now to Indeed.com slash Blue Wire. Let them know we sent you. This offer is valid through December 31st.

Terms and conditions apply. Sponsoring today's episode of the HockeyPediocast is Bed Online. You might not be going to a game this year as we wait for the world to sort itself out and for this pandemic to end and for it to be safe to go back to live sporting events. But in the meantime, you can still be in on the action at Bet Online. Bet Online is going the extra mile to make sure you can get in on every possible chance to win this season. Game spreads and totals to team, player, and coaching props,

that online gives you more options to wager than anywhere else. Obviously, there's no hockey or basketball on right now anymore with their season's over, but football's still on. And down the road, when we know when the NHL season's going to be getting back, you're going to be able to go on there and start wagering on futures, like championship, who do you think is going to win next season, Stanley Cup, wagering on wins, you know, player props. There's going to be a lot of good stuff there.

I recommend going there now and familiarizing yourself with it and trying it out and taking for a spin and then getting ready in advance of the next season. So just head the bet online today and take advantage of all the great sign-up bonuses they've got there. Don't forget to use the promo code bluewire at betonline.ag to let them know that we send you. That's blue wire, all one word. Bet online, your online sportsbook experts. Yeah, I mean, okay, so here's the next thing.

So in terms of the question of how do they fix things or how do they sort of re-es- redirect the course of this most recent trajectory here they're on to prevent this from being the new normal for this organization to make this sort of a one-year aberration. You can kind of view it from a couple different sort of lenses. I think normally you would say this was just a throwaway season, especially down the stretch where when they kind of threw in the white, the towel on the season, and they basically just started ruling guys out for the year after they got banged up and their lineup look like sort of the, you know, the barracuda more so than the sharks, you can kind of say, okay, listen, this is a throwaway season, we're going to regroup, we're going to bounce back

next year, and we're just going to sort of throw it out. There's not much you can take from there's not very few silver linings. And normally I would say that. I think in this case, it's a bit sort of maybe either lazy or foolish or a combination of them to simply just sort of or maybe dangerous as an analyst to just be like, okay, things are going to bounce back to the way they were before next year because I need to see some sort of a fundamental change or a structural difference that's going to happen moving forward. And so we can view that from the coaching perspective. We can view that from, you know, the talent that they already have on the team.

We can also view that from what they did to improve their team or reasons to believe that things are going to be better. And, you know, Doug Wilson's hands were mostly tied because they do have so much money committed to a lot of finite number of players. veterans, as we alluded to. And also given the current financial climate with the pandemic and uncertainty surrounding, what the caps going to look like, when games are going to be played, when fans are going to be in the stands again, and you can be able to get that gay revenue. Teams weren't spending the way they normally would have in the past. So the sort of room

to improve and ways to add talent was certainly more difficult to come by. But you look at this roster and basically, I guess the only difference really is that they added Ryan Donato and and Devin Dubnick, like, I guess they brought back Matt Nietto too, but it seems like it's betting a lot on the talent and the infrastructure already in place as opposed to sort of injecting any new young talent and hoping that that's going to make the difference. Oh, you forgot Patrick Barlow, too, there, so. Oh, of course. Well, when I'm talking about injecting youthful enthusiasm and young talent.

Yes, it's true. But, yeah, it definitely is a bet on the current infrastructure, like you said, of the team. you know, Doug Wilson keeps repeating. I've heard him say it like a half dozen times already that the bones of this team are strong. You know, he's talking about guys like Couture and Carlson and Burns. And I think he has to kind of say that too

because he's tied into those contracts for so long. And so there's, of course, no reason to submarine your own players to the press. So he's not going to do that. So, yeah, so he really does have much choice but to kind of anchor himself to these players. The one thing I disagree with what they're doing this off-season, though, is, and, you know,

far be it for me to spend somebody, money of course but you know there is so much you know and I hate to use this word in such unfortunate time but you know there's a lot of opportunity in free agency market to sign guys for you know way lower than and for way shorter a term than then you had to in years past and one would expect that the market's going to revive at some point I'm not talking about soon like next year at pre-industry market will be very tough for the for the free agents too I'm sure but at some point the market's going to, you know, going, going to come back. And so some, some guy you sign for,

like, say, like a Craig Smith who signed for three years, nine million this past off season, is going to look like a real bargain maybe in a couple of years. And even if you don't want to avoid a guy like Smith who's a little bit older, there are a guy in their late 20s out there who can help you and who are, you know, half the price that they normally would be in a normal UFA year. And so the sharks I feel are kind of missing this opportunity to basically, you know, again, if we talk about this team looks kind of like the team last year that was, you know, very bad last year, that is what the team looks like. And going into this offseason, my perspective was that this team needed basically a brand new third line.

And in most off seasons, getting a third line is, you know, it's no chump change. It would have cost them a decent amount. But this off season, they could have got pretty much a brand. new third line, pretty decent players for, I don't know, like six, seven million overall. You have two, three good players. And I think that's what the team

kind of needed. And as for why the sharks haven't done that and why they've kind of stuck with kind of the bargain kind of shopping with Marlowe and Nietto, it could be because, you know, they don't have money coming in, which is understandable. Again, it's easy for me to, you know, to spend, hypothetically spend

Hassel partners, billions of dollars, you know? But I think there is an opportunity missed there to kind of capture, if you're going to stick with the kind of the bones of this team, the Eric Carlson at age 30, Brent Burns at age 35, and hope that they have

another great season or two in them. You know, if you happen to get that lucky and they do have that great season or two left in them, you know, you're going to miss in terms of having the depth around them, I think. Unless, you know, unless, of course, the sharks prospects, you know, who did kind of fail them this past season, they had another year to grow.

And that another year could be a big difference for guys like, you know, I mentioned like Chimolesky and Gambrell and O. Greger and whatever. You know, not big names, not names that, you know, unless you're like a prospect's nerd, you would know. But guys that if they even can play kind of good middle six minutes, that would be a huge boon for the sharks. Well, I think the point that also further keys in on what you were saying there, and one of the most head-scratching decisions to me in terms of the way they did spend the limited resources they had was how they decided to approach what they have in the crease, right? And I think for me, you know, it's still really difficult to separate system from goalie performance.

And I think it's very clear that any goalie playing behind what we saw the past year or two from this team, even when they were in their haydings, in 2018-19, there were certainly moments where they were leaving their goalie out to dry, and it was a difficult environment to post a high save percentage in. But that said, I think it's, you can't argue that Martin Jones has been genuinely bad the past two years. I mean, no one has a worse, save percentage. It's an 896 over the past two years. Minus 26 goals saved above expected is near the bottom of the league. And they basically viewed that with Arundel going out the door and said, well, we're going to add a proven goalie, certainly in Devin Dube.

but one who literally has the league worst minus 46 goals saved above expected in that time. And, you know, even acknowledging that there's probably some funky score effects in terms of how they keep shot distances and stuff in Minnesota that inflates those numbers. And the fact that, you know, they got Minnesota to retain half of the cap commitments and it's only a one-year deal. I think the ultimate question I keep coming back to is why? Because you're talking about a 34-year-old goalie that's going from a great defensive structure to one that's, certainly in the bottom half of the league. And this was a summer where, as you just talked about with all the players, especially for goalies, this was true.

Pretty much everyone was available for much less than they normally would go for, and they could have had their pick of the litter. And instead, it felt like maybe they even misjudged the market because they made this trade before a free agency opened and sort of committed themselves to this Martin Jones-Devin Dubnick tandem. And I just don't really understand the rationale for that. I guess you could argue that anything can happen in one year with goalies, and they're both big names and certainly we've seen crazier things happen than a random

rejuvenation for one of these guys but it just seems like kind of like a bad bet for me especially considering what was available there and for the prices involved and it seems like very kind of lacked ambition um you know they can talk a big game and have a brave face about expecting carlinson and burns to bounce back and and all these guys to get healthy and make another run but if you're planning on doing so heading into next season. I don't know how you can, with a straight face, say that Martin Jones and Devin Dubnick is your best bet in that to accomplish that. Well, I think they're definitely placing a lot of stock in, you know, speaking of the coaching

staff, right, and we haven't mentioned them yet. You know, Bob Boogner is staying on and he just brought in to us to a kind of, you know, big-name assistants in Rocky Thompson and John Madden. And I think there's going to be an emphasis on defensive structure with his team. Now, I'm not sure how that's going to work with the team that. you know guys like carlinson and burns who are better offensively than they are defensively and i don't say that with any kind of uh uh you know um it's it's not a it's not a dig on them you know it just those are that's who these guys are and so it'll be kind of interesting how those guys fit into that

but but if they if they do accomplish that and fit in a better defensive structure have everybody buying into that and they can score a few more goals i think that's what they count on to protect the guy like martin jones you know one thing that that they they hammered a lot during the off season was just how Bob Bochner was able to change. The key stat they kept citing were rush chances. And before that last season under Pete in the first couple of months, the sharks were 30th in the league and rush chances. And I actually tracked back on that and confirmed it was sport logic.

And so, you know, I think they're citing the same stats. But yeah, so anyway, so they were 30th in the league under Pete. And when Bob Bochner took over, they were able to get themselves up to, up to the top 10 in the league in terms of rush chances allowed. And concurrently, both Martin Jones and Aaron Dell's statistics improved. You know, their state percentage wasn't great by any stretch, but it was still kind of became, it went from league worse to league average-ish. And so I think that's one thing they're hanging their hat on.

One thing that I've never been able to really ask them or drill down on then, okay, is, okay, I see that Bob, you know, you know, how much he, he himself did. But after Bob came on, their defensive stats did improve. We can see that. But, of course, what happened to Martin Jones in 2018-19, when the starts defensive stats weren't, you know, at least on paper, they didn't look bad.

And so, you know, what happened then? But on 2019, on this past season, though, they're right on that, that Jones' stats did improve with, you know, kind of evidence of a better defensive structure. And so I think that's one thing they're hanging their head on. Also the fact that, again, you know, he's a contract. They signed him to a six-year contract a little while ago. He has four years left.

What are you going to do with him? You know? And so just if you're, you can't, you know, you can't afford to buy him out. You're not going to do that. There's no reason to, you know, to submarine him publicly to the press. So what can you do but try to build around him and try to, you know, put him in a position to succeed or at least put him in a position to be average? and I think the same goes for Devin Dubnick,

even though Dubnick, of course, they don't have that long-term commitment, but I think that they wanted to bring in somebody who was a starting caliber goalie before, who had that kind of experience. So in case Jones falters again, they can go with somebody that they kind of trust more than Erindell,

a guy who's kind of had that starting load before in Dubnick. And so even though it's not the most exciting of pickups, Dubnick, you know, the fact that also, too, that Minnesota picked up half the contract. I think it's okay. You know, again, it's not exactly, it's not, it's not the most exciting of deals. And sure, they could have signed a,

they could have signed a guy like Kedobin for three years and for not too much money. But I think, too, that they wanted to stay away from kind of a long-term commitment there because, for one thing, again, how goaltending can kind of shift from year to year, for one thing. So you don't want to sign a guy like Kudbin

who's 30, and see his numbers kind of fall in their face when he leaves a much better defensive structure in Dallas and goes to San Jose. Or even a guy like Cam Talbot, another three-year guy who's probably might be a better goalie than Dubnick now is actually replacing Dubnick. But once again, the three-year commitment, even though it's not a long-term commitment, it's still, you know, longer than the one-year commitment they have the Dubnick. Yeah.

I just would have like to see them, I guess, aim for a higher upside option. I think even in the best-case scenario for. Dubnik bouncing back. I feel like we kind of you can cap the ceiling on what that's going to look like especially at this point of his career, but you're right with goaltending, who knows? And I think the bigger point there certainly is what's going on in front of them and sort of

trying to at least make it a more sort of palatable situation where they're not just completely leaving them out to dry. And so when Boomer took over, you know, it's tough to make any sweeping proclamations because it's less than 40 games

worth of data and they'd only had Carlson, Hurdle, and Couture for about half the games, but I do think it is encouraging that the numbers across the board did all basically improve, right? Like at 5-1-5, they went from 28th in shot share, 23rd, and high-danger chance share, and 26th and expected goals share to 15th, 8th and 9th, respectively, and that's in large part because the defensive numbers all went up. They stopped bleeding chances at like a top-five level in the league and really sort of got stingier. now, you know, the talent thinned out because of all those injuries and so the shooting percentage dropped and so the results themselves didn't necessarily improve, but the underlying

process did look a lot better and at least kind of lends itself to the idea that the system was as big of a problem as the goal-tending and it'll get better. And I guess that's a sort of a surprising revelation for me because I didn't really have high hopes heading into this regime because the last time we'd seen Bob Booneer run a team was the 2018-19 Florida Panthers who were just as bad defensively, I think, as the sharks were before and repeat to Burr to the point where it sort of drove them crazy and forced them into, or I guess didn't force them, but made them believe that, you know, they needed such drastic changes that they went out and paid a ton of money for us

or gave a Brovsky and made all these wide sweeping moves. And it wound up being that, you know, James Reimer goes to a better defensive system in Carolina and looks just fine and maybe made us sort of realize that the defense was as much to blame as the goaltending. And so after you see that, I certainly wasn't very optimistic about what would happen. But based on those 35 or so games that we saw under the new coaching staff, they were certainly encouraging signs. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And I think that the hope is that they can kind of continue this strong defensive play. You obviously get their stars healthy. They're guys like Carlson and Couture and Hurtle. And then hopefully have one of these younger guys kind of surprised. and, you know, maybe a year late, right? But, hey, a year late is better than ever. And so, and also, they also traded for a guy like the Ryan Donato, who not to put too much, you know, pin too much hopes on him,

but the guy can definitely score. I mean, this guy led the Wild and I think even strength goals last year, and this is playing fourth-line minutes. And so, yes, on one hand, you have to, there's a reason why the Wild dumped him, you know, like the Wild aren't completely stupid. So they know this guy let them, and even strength scoring.

On other hand, you know, there must be some flaws in this game as to why they let a 24-year-old score like that go for just a third-round pick. But for the Sharks, though, he does represent some hope. And so there's a guy who, if he can find his game a bit, then you've added another score on the chief. And then maybe, you know, again,

all the young players I mentioned, maybe one of them steps up. So there is some hope for this team to be kind of, you know, I use the King's comparison, right there earlier. But I see this team and it's silling to be kind of like the 2017-18 Kings.

And that's the team again that made the playoffs. I'm sorry, Kopitar and Dowdy had fantastic seasons that year. And so can guys like Carlson and Burns find that? Yes, I think so. Can Couture, you know, hurdle be healthy, have strong seasons?

Can Tim O'Meier and Kevin LeBeng take a step up? And yeah, I think those things are very possible. And so, you know, I think that's sort of the hope that you kind of, you know, I don't know if the organization and talking about Doug Wilson ownership sees this team as a Stanley Cup team, hence they're kind of pretty along the edges kind of additions to this free agency. You know, if they thought this team was a player away, they've shown in the past, you know, whether it's trading for Eric Carlson or whatever, that if they think this team is a player away, they won't make that commitment. You know, this ownership is not cheap by any stretch. And so I don't think that that's how they see this team. But, you know, can this team kind of around the edges, you know, be kind of that fringe

playoff team, second round, you know, ceiling team? Yeah, I think so. Well, I guess presumably the most optimistic outlook of this team would hinge on just better health, right? I think that's what they're kind of banking on it. And I'd be willing to buy that to a certain extent. the thing that troubles them from me and they kind of cancels it out or raises red flags about that being your sort of finger-hanging your hat on is the fact that, you know, this is a roster

that's clearly leaning heavily on players who are either approaching their 30s already there and in some cases in their mid-30s. And beyond that, more worrisomily, is just kind of the heavy number of miles that have been put on their bodies over the years and sort of the way they've played. And, you know, like, I think you could argue that they're two most important players as weird as this is to say are Eric Carlson and Thomas Hurdle for different degrees, or for different reasons. But, you know, in the case of a guy like Hurdle, it's, this is what the third sort of major knee injury he's had now.

I think he's still only 27 years old. So hopefully he'll be able to bounce back from that. Hopefully it doesn't completely sap his explosion. But that's kind of a bummer for me because he's one of my favorite players to watch when he's going. And especially in 2018, 19, he was kind of the driver of that offense where he scored 35 goals in the regular season, chipped in another 10 in the playoffs, was just this high danger chance generating machine.

And now there's a lot of uncertainty there as well. I think it's dangerous to just assume that he's going to be able to shake it off and come back and look like that past version of himself, considering this isn't just sort of a one-off. Yeah, yeah. It's actually his second major one. So if that makes us all feel better. Well, so didn't he have, he had one in his rookie season. And then he had one in the final against Pittsburgh.

when he wound up missing 30 games in next year, I believe. And this is his third one. But yeah, you're right, though. You're right. You're right. Right. Well, definitely three stretches where he's going to have missed significant periods of time. So it's not nothing.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, you're right. You're right. Well, I guess the good news there may be, maybe this long break will give him that kind of that chance to kind of retain that extra, extra bit of explosion there that he might have been missing if he had started the season on time. And, you know, of course, right now everybody's saying all the right things, the rosy things. But right now they're saying that he is, you know, as healthy as ever.

And so I guess, though, there is a lot of a lot hinging, though, on his health. And, of course, you know, Eric Carlson's too. And those are guys that have had, you know, questions with their health, a lot of questions, right, over the years. Okay, so let's kind of keep going and unpacking the coaching situation and sort of the actual structural changes that resulted in in in those numbers and you know i will start off by saying i do feel a bit for peter where he's obviously um in a nice spot now with vegas and he will be coaching a contender so i don't feel too bad for him he landed on his feet certainly but i remember at the time when he was fired i think the team was 31st and five-on-five say percentage and similarly overall and

regardless of how good of a job you're doing as a coach if you're getting those results i don't care what the defensive system is it's going to be tough for you to to win hockey games and uh he's an easy guy to poke fun out for me because every time the camera pants him on the bench, he has this look on his face where he just received terrible news, but is trying to sort of suppress his emotions and save face while I was in public, and he's going to go cry it out later in the room. So he's an easy guy to poke fun at, but I do think he's a heck of a coach and his, you know, his track record speaks for itself in terms of getting results from his teams. But so, you know, Boomer takes over and the results improve, and especially, I know you wrote recently about

sort of Brent Burns and trying to optimize his performance, but he was a one where all year he was healthy, so he avoided the injury above, like, a lot of these guys. But you could, whether it was the loss of Joe Pavelski and not having him around to kind of help tip that high volume of point shots, the burns was generating, or whether it was just, you know, a matter of the fact that he's, what, 35, 36 years old now, the results themselves for him were also kind of took a worrisome downtick and inside a bump back up. And he had a bit of a resurgence under Boobner, and I kind of wanted to talk about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think one of the things, too, in terms of you allude to Joe Belveski not being there in front of tip to shots too, but also, too, you know, if you introduce all these forwards to the team last year and they're not as good as the guys before, not just in terms of getting to the net and getting their sticking position to tip shots, but also to even just retrieving the puck in the corner and getting it back to Brent in good shooting positions. And Brent's a guy who can shoot it from pretty much any position, right? But you still got to get him to puck in kind of a place where he can do something with it. And so just all those kind of little kind of death by 1,000 cuts kind of still, right, where all these little things are kind of sapping at kind of, you know, allowing him to maximize his game. But I think in terms of what Bob, I think, will try to do when he took over. And it looks like, you know, we don't know for sure, but looks like they'll try to do this year is try to involve him and Eric in terms of almost playing, you know, like a forward more. Just, you know, be down there more and mix in a little bit and attack that way. And I think that could be a way to kind of change things up because this is going to be a different shark's team.

It's going to be different than what Pete liked to run in terms of everything centered around Brett Burns and his point shot under Pete the board. And recognizing that the forwards aren't as good these days for the sharks and you don't have the best guy in the league tipping shots like Joe Boevelski in front anymore. Then you've got to change things up a little bit. I think they have changed up a lot. It's crazy. I mean, they certainly had success, dude. so, but in 2020, when it feels like most teams are looking to sort of pursue quality over quantity and maybe sort of try to increase the likelihood of making the most obvious opportunities when

you are in the offensive zone, they were settling for these crazy low-presented shots. I remember I wrote about it last season and got a lot of pushback from people saying, oh, well, they're just aiming for those tips, and, you know, they're getting a benefit from the mayhem that results and the loose pucks and the recoveries and the rebounds. And there's certainly some merit to that. better at it than most teams. But when your entire offense is flowing through point shots from even a guy like Brent Burns who's better at it than most defensemen, it's just, it's such low percentage, right? Like you're talking like the typical defenseman's going to be scoring on less than

5% of his shots compared to what forwards are doing, whereas there's more 11, 12 range. And it just seems like they needed to modernize that plan of attack. And I think that is the right way to go about it. When I'm thinking of what the identity of this team is going to be moving forward or how they're going to succeed in an ideal world in terms of playing style, it needs to be just activating Branson, allowing them to pinch, allowing them to jump up into the play, allowing them to be more aggressive with those sort of neutral zone reloads where after a long possession, they quickly get it back in while other teams tired and changing. And so it needs to be a lot more of that and a lot less of that sort of cycle that they were doing where they would just pass it out to the point,

shoot it, kind of try to recover it, get it back out to the point, and rinse and repeat because that clearly wasn't working. Yeah, well, I think they had the elements for that to do that kind of rinse and repeat over the years when you had Joe Thornton who was still close enough to prime Joe Thornton, even in his late 30s where he can hold guys off and, you know, make space along the wall and, you know, suck guys in and then make some unbelievable pass. And of course, you had Joe Boevelski in front of the net. So that formula worked because you had the right players for it.

I agree, though, that the Sharks team now just they don't have the horses for that necessarily anymore. And so in that case, then, yeah, they did kind of have to change up. And, yeah, and I think that's one thing that will be interesting to see if guys like Burns and Carlson can really, you know, find their game that way. You know, maybe that's one way. But of course, though, you know, with those guys, if they're, if those guys are going to be attacking, you know, below the dots more, that's going to put more pressure on the forward to come back and, you know, cover for those guys. And this is, of course, the Sharks, you know, forwards group that did not look good last year, did not look good in any element, including defense last year, too. And so we'll be, it'll be a train to see if those guys can, can kind of, you know, fill that kind of make up for that, this, this season, you know, covering for guys like Berners.

and Carlson. Yeah. It kind of leads back to you. If you're doing that and you're playing that way, then you're probably putting more on the plate of Devin Doobnick and Martin Jones. And that might not be a great strategy either. Let's talk a bit about Carlson then because I guess maybe it's just because we're in that period of the pandemic now where everyone's bored and we're all kind of going

a bit crazy and they're trying to looking for things to talk about. But I'm not on Twitter as much as I used to be just because there's not that much going on and I'm kind of trying to pace myself and keep sane. But I did notice there was a lot of conversation recently about Eric Carlson and how good he's actually been and the trade and sort of revisionist history and stuff. And I thought it was kind of completely missing the plot. Like this is the way people were talking about Eric Carlson who just kind of drove me crazy because certainly, you know, the last time we saw him,

he didn't look like Pete Eric Carlson obviously. And I think at this point of his career, it's fair. to wonder what that next version of Carlson is going to look like, considering the injuries he's had, considering that he's 30. I had Jack Hahn on the podcast recently, and he wrote a great article about this, but he was worried about sort of his skating mechanics and the ability to sort of explode and be vintage himself. And he certainly had to change his game.

I think even when he was humming the past year and a half or so and playing well and posting good results, you saw him sort of pick his spots more and not necessarily jump up as aggressively as he used to. that's going to come with sort of the territory of the age he's at now. And I think if anyone is suited to have a second sort of post-peak, strong performance or strong kind of development of their career, it's going to be Carlson because he does have the sort of guile and the translatable skills to adapt and remain effective.

So I remain confident about him. I'm not going to, it's worrisome that in the past three years now, he's missed a chunk of games each season. And I'm no doctor. not going to comment on that. I will just say that in terms of his performance and sort of projecting how he's going to look like in the next couple of years, I still remain in the camp of the optimistic side that I do think we haven't seen the last of Eric Carlson being an impact defenseman. Well, I'd rather talk about or revisit Eric Carlson trade than talk about

Evander Kane fighting Logan Paul or Jake Paul. Right. That's true. But in terms of Eric, Yeah, I think that the problem, though, here is that Dave signed him, you know, and again, it's not his fault that they signed him to that contract they signed him for, but he is the highest paid defense him in the league. And so you need to get that kind of performance from him, you know, what you expect, just to, you know, make that money worth it. And he wasn't terrible last year by any stretch. And I don't think he was as bad as his worst critics made him out to be last year. but he wasn't a game changer last year and at the money he's making he's got to be a game changer and not to just point the finger at him

that whole team you know Brent Burns etc etc you know a local couture were paid to be game changers and they were not last year but it's hard to say with Carlson just because as you mentioned so much has been clouded the last few seasons by it looks like injuries right and yeah we're not doctors but it's yeah i mean i don't know i don't know if i'm as confident uh i i know that carlson is a very

proud player and i think i i do think that you probably will figure out a way to to to still be impactful but you know how impactful and will that be you know 11.5 million dollars impactful a year i don't know well everyone talks about and deservedly so that 2017 postseason run he had was probably as dominant as i've ever seen a player play in terms of the impact he had on the ice for a senator's team that wasn't very good beyond him. But I think we're sort of losing sight of the fact or maybe underrating how good he was in 2018, 19 for the Sharks. I know he missed time with injury and it ended on a sour note.

But as you alluded to earlier, there were stretches in that season where he was as good as he's ever been, I think. And, you know, he finished the year, I think, in terms of his on-ice impacts, they were through the roof where they were like in the 59% territory and a lot of their shotgun. share metrics at 5-1-5 and all the sort of predictive stuff that we look at in underlying metrics. And so it hasn't been that long of him not being that great. I think for whatever reason we don't think of that 2018-19 season he had as being a peak

version of him. And maybe it looked a little different physically than he did during his heyday in Ottawa. But the results were still there. And that kind of is what I'm clinging on to because that wasn't that long ago. It's really just one year removed. Doug Wilson is clinging on that, too. That's true. And, you know, there's a reason why, you know, again, you know, Doug Wilson is, you know, very smart hockey man.

There's a reason why he signed Carlson to eight years. And it's because of that December, January stretch that I alluded to where Eric was amazing. And he was, you know, in the range of, yeah, as good as I've seen him, you know. But the problem, of course, I think in terms of perception, I think the problem was that, you know, he got hurt. He hurt his groin in, I think, mid-January, early January. and he came back after that, but he was really never the same. And so the Eric Carlson that we remember from 2018-19, most of it is going to be from the playoffs, right?

And the Sharks did make a good run, but that was, you know, a hampered Eric Carlson throughout the playoffs. I mean, there were stretches when he started to look more like himself, and then it would kind of, you know, I think in the Carter Rout, second round, the Colorado series, I wrote about that, where it sort of looked like he was more like himself. But then, of course, in the St. Louis series, he couldn't even finish the series.

And of course, that's what everybody solved is kind of, you know, on and off, on and off play in the postseason. And also, of course, on and off even just appearances, because, yeah, he wasn't, he'd even play the last game, the elimination game against the blues in the conference finals. And so I think 2018-19, you know, kind of going a little off topic here, but for Sharks fans, 2018-19, the big what-if is if Eric Carlson was healthy, because that is the most talented the Sharks team that they've,

they've ever had. And they had so much depth, but, you know, they're, you know, they're kind of fulcrum guy and Carlson. Well,

they had two fulcrum guys and Burns and Carlson. And Burns was healthy enough. And but Carlson was not. And so that's going to be a big what if that will haunt sharks fans, especially if, you know,

this next, you know, seven years of Carlson's contract, you know, doesn't turn around. I mean, I think the much bigger issue, it's obviously at a lower cap hit,

but we haven't talked about market Ward Vlasik yet. And as the pressing as the first 50 or so minutes of this kind of this show had been, we're about to reach an even more somber note here. And I do want to start it off by saying that all the respect on the world to Mark Gailor Vlasic, who along with guys like Nicholas Jarmussen, I think really helped change the game by redefining what we think of as a modern shutdown defenseman where he would do it in more subtle ways, right? Like he would not only patrol the blue line, but sometimes extend his coverage into the neutral zone and kind of break up plays before they

even happened. He'd use a stick in kind of passing lanes to break stuff up without taking penalties. He was just a ridiculously effective defensive defenseman. And there have been signs even dating back to more than two years ago of kind of some talent erosion and you'd wonder how he'd age. And now that he's 33, we've kind of seen all of that manifest itself where in the past two years, his performance has really just basically fallen off a cliff in terms of every metric. And I think even more alarmingly is he has dragged down guys like Eric Carlson and Brent Burns

when he's played with them. And part of that is usage and sort of how much they rely on him to start in his own zone and play against other teams of best players. But given the money and given the pedigree, you'd hope that you'd be able to get better results than they have. And considering that there's six years left on that deal, you know, with a no-move clause, it's that's a much more sort of difficult pill to swallow for me because at least with carlinson and burns they might not be what they used to be but they can still be wildly effective players

if he used correctly with flasic it's difficult for me to sort of reconcile or or envision a scenario where you're going to be able to squeeze value out of him even in the next two or three years as he approaches his mid-30s here because he just has he's kind of looks like he's entered a different stage of his career in terms of being able to keep up with a play and do the stuff that he used to when he was effective. Well, I'll counter with a slightly more positive note. All right. Hit me with that. So I was talking to a scout about Vlasic during the season.

And, you know, we kind of landed on the conclusion that Walsick can still play. Blasic, and, you know, that's always kind of one of those damning, like, you know, backhanded compliments. A guy can still play, you know. Well, anyone who could put on their skates and, you know, not fall over, I guess you can say you can play. Anyway, though, the thought that the scouten and I concluded with Blasic is that we still think that he is a top four defenseman. But top four, though, he's not, he shouldn't be in your top pairing. He shouldn't be your top shutdown defenseman necessarily because maybe he can't do that night to night anymore. And speaking of Jack Hahn, you know, Jack Han and I, we talked about it in some stuff that I've written for San Jose hockey now.

And he talked about how, you know, Lasix reads, his stick play is still excellent. But, you know, he just, he can't get back on the pucks like he used to. And nowadays, too, he's, you know, relying more on, you know, kind of dumping it out. He's not making that first pass. Maybe he doesn't have the time as much anymore. And to Jack, it looked like Vlastic's, you know, kind of body was, you know, just physically, he was breaking down a little bit. So he wouldn't be, he's not able to consistently play top shutdown minutes anymore. But does that mean that Vlastic is unable to be effective defensemen still?

I know that a lot of his numbers are quite damning, and so I'm not going to argue that point of it. You know, I've seen those numbers. We've all seen them, and they're terrible, I know. But, you know, can Vlasic still be, you know, effective-ish? Like, you know, maybe Vlasic isn't a $7 million defenseman, but he's like a $5 million guy who can play some good minutes still. And, you know, as long as you kind of preserve them and don't throw them out against, you know, the Connor McDavid's at the world anymore. I think that's still possible. At least that's what, you know, that's what I talk.

with the scout about. And also in terms of, you know, we talked about Eric Carlson's, you know, good play in 2018-19 and how that, you know, is still promising. I felt like Blaswick was very good in the playoffs in the first two rounds of that 2018-19. And, you know, the Colorado series, he and Burns did a very good job. It was a very, you know, it was a very coordinated kind of defensive plan on Nathan McKinnon, you know, it was a team plan. It wasn't just Flassick and Burns, but it was still, you know, a very good job where,

you know, oftentimes you would see a guy like Burns. just basically stand in front of McKinnon, not even let him get started. And, you know, Burns was sort of the safety valve in terms of anything went wrong, but it was effective. And they were able to pull it out against Colorado. And, you know, the very dangerous, you know, McKinnon, Raton, Landis Cog Line. And so I think there's still something there in Velastic, you know, and I guess another thing I would say, too, if you want to stay on the positive tone is, you know, people were

killing, you know, Justin Braun in his last year with, with the sharks. They're absolutely killing him. And again, the numbers showed, yeah, that this guy was not worth even signing to a contract, at least based on, you know, the numbers. And with Philadelphia in a lighter role, and just something more ideal for him, you know, Justin's bronze numbers look great this past season. And again, so I'm not saying that's exactly where Blasic is at, but I think in the right situation, Velastic can still be a good player. Now, after all, that positive though i gotta say one negative the problem though with the sharks though is that they almost have no i'm not sure if they have any choice but but classic in the top shutdown role

and that's the problem well just the team's not deep enough here's the problem i completely agree in a different circumstance a different scenario you could squeeze value out of them and get more effective minutes because you're right the usage and who you're playing against and how you're utilized results a lot in in terms of affecting the numbers i think in this case though, and you hit the nail on the head with that final sentiment there, beyond the fact that they're paying him at a $7 million cap it for the next six seasons, which becomes really tough in terms of forcing the issue, I think if you're mapping out the depth chart here, right,

I think you have to keep Flassick away from Carlson based on the numbers we saw last year in terms of how they played together and the draggy hat on them. And if you're doing that, they seem to like Burns playing with Simek. And so in that case, you've got a $7 million defenseman on your third pairing, and he's probably just at that point, I don't know how you're going to utilize him in terms of allocating the minutes and who he's going to be playing with and how he's going to look in that. So I don't think it's as simple as it all depends on who he's going to play with, but I don't see a very palatable solution here because I would hate to see them bring it back with Carlson Vlasic based on how they looked last year together. Yeah, I mean, they could try a Schimick with Carlson. They've never tried that. And so, I mean, why not?

And Burns and Velasic have played successful minutes together. Like I said, in the 2018-19 playoffs. So maybe there is some hope there. But I don't know, because they never tried Schemick and Carlson before. They do seem to have a preference. You know, Blasick and Burns only happened in playoffs because Schimmick got hurt. And so we'll see about that. But that does seem to be kind of their preferred top four right now.

I guess the one kind of hope is Mario Ferraro played was, you know, it turned out to be the Sharks best rookie last year, which was a little unfortunate in a sense that, not that it's unfortunate when a guy plays, young player surpasses expectations, but the Sharks really needed a forward, you know, a young forward to be put last year.

Instead, they got a young defenseman. And so Ferraro's a guy that has some promise. So if you can step up and, you know, maybe he's a guy that can start to, you know, push Flastic down the lineup or, and of course, you know, if that means Flastic on a, and third pairing, you know, that's not ideal.

But maybe that is a place where you can get even better value. Because maybe Velasic, I don't know. But if my projection is that Velasic is still a guy was capable of playing, you know, a second pairing minutes, then putting him in top, top, bottom pairing, well, he can be a dominant bottom pairing guy. And even though the value is not there in terms of his money, you know, good teams are, great teams are based on, you know, being able to dominate, having guys who can dominate even, you know, the bottom pairing fourth line minutes.

Well, I think what we know is around the league, people are slow to adjust to recalibrate their beliefs on established players. And we often see there's a gap between, especially with like aging veterans, in terms of the opinion of how people value them versus their actual on ice play. And so maybe if similar to that scout you were speaking to, if there's a GM around the league that still views Mark Erudvasik in that way, maybe they can give them a call. But considering the current climate, I doubt. I remember last year I was actually sliding into your DMs and pitching you with trade offers because, you know, there was this talk that the Panthers were kind of desperate to improve their defense and make changes. And it felt like Dale Tallinn was on the precipice of doing something crazy and pre-pandemic.

It wouldn't have been as outrageous or unbelievable to expect a team to take on Vossis' contract. But obviously there's a lot of extenuating circumstances there in terms of both as no move clause. And I'm sure the organizations, you know, they'd probably. I think in a perfect world like to see him in his career as a shark because he has been there their entire time and there's certain a lot of emotions in place there as well. But yeah, I do think it was a missed opportunity. And it's not even the thing of hindsight. Like I feel like I've been saying on this podcast for a couple years now that, uh, they should try and get ahead of this while they still

can because I think the, the back end of this deal will not look pretty. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, in fairness, too, you make a good point. You know, the same scout that I talk to. And I think he genuinely does believe, like myself, that Vlasik has some game left, but, you know, would he trade for Vlasic? Probably not. You know, because he sees the contract and, you know, Vlastic, we're talking about Vlastic right now at 33. And yeah, he might have a couple good years left in him, like decentish years, right? Maybe not, you know, Olympic caliber of world class years, but he still might have a couple

good years in him. But, again, are you going to trade for him? You know, probably not, you know? And so, yeah, I think in terms of getting ahead of it, unfortunately, you know, I think, I think even the teams, even though they still like the player, they recognize, you know, I think, and we see this with how contracts are doled out in general these days, that teams do seem to recognize that giving guys contracts into their, you know, late 30s, early 40s is troubled, right? And I think there's some recognition of that around the league. I'm not sure. Well, I think that's a good place to sort of end this conversation on because I guess my one kind of final takeaway or whatever, or last point. is I'm very curious to see how this organization approaches things moving forward, you know, beyond

just next year because I think Doug Wilson has certainly built up tons of equity in the organization with the job he's done over the past two decades and keeping San Jose sort of atop the league and constantly competitive. But he is also the second longest tenure in the GM in the league right now. And I think for me, I always get a bit concerned about when a GM sort of either gets long on the tooth or can hear the clock ticking in terms of feeling the desperation to do something. I always worry about the motives of like whether the moves are going to be trying to save a job and trying to speed things out prematurely or whether there actually are the long term and best interests in the organization in mind with moves.

And so now that he's made another coaching change and now that he's kind of committed to this group, I'm really just interested to see how they approach things, whether there is going to be that added desperation because I think most people would agree that. you know, they knocked it out of the park, for example, at the draft this year where with their first four or five picks, they just took home run cuts on high upside players. And that's great. And that's something that they've needed over the past however many years in terms of this infusion of young talent and the pipeline and the next generation of Sharks players. But I think if you're Logan to Cher or if you're Eric Carlson or Brent Burns, you don't really care about a player that

four or five years from now is going to be able to step into the lineup and contribute. You're probably trying to stay competitive now and trying to, you know, the contract's one thing, but just sort of that sort of pride of being a high-level competitive player. You don't want to spend your final most productive seasons on a losing team where you're not competing for a playoff spot. And so it's a tough situation to sort of navigate in terms of the long-term best interests of organization while also keeping this sort of positive work environment when you have this type of a group. Because it's one thing where we start. of the show talking about the Red Wings, for example, will end it now.

If you know you're going to be a bad team and you're just filled with young players, you can kind of chalk that up to this is going to be growing pains. It's part of the developmental curve. But when you're an aging team and you just don't have, you're stuck in that purgatory and you kind of don't have a lot of hope, that can be a really difficult situation to manage. And so how they approach that and sort of whether they try to walk a fine line between the two agendas or whether they go all in on one direction, that's something I'm going to be watching for. Yeah, I think you put it well, too.

You know, even though I criticized what Doug Wilson has done this offseason, you know, I think if he's looking at the long-term future of the team, I think he has done well for it. He didn't trade the first round pick this year, which some people thought he would because, again, you know, if you're trying to capture, you know, the last prime seasons or good seasons that a guy like Brent Breringer, Aaron Carlson or Lotham the Tour might have,

then it might have made some sense to trade that pick away. He did not. you know, you might expect, if you're trying to capture the last of the prime of these guys, you know, that he would be more active on our agency market. And he was not. And so it does kind of speak to right now, at least,

that if you were talking about, did Doug Wilson do the best for the long-term future of the team this past off season, it looks like he did. But, you know, next season, if he kind of gets middling results, like Eric Carlton is better, but he's not, you know, back to Eric Carlson from Ottawa.

And the team is kind of, you know, not much better overall, you know. Does that kind of change what he does? Does he start to kind of hear the footsteps, you know, for his job? And, you know, does he become desperate, a little bit desperate? Or they kind of hang with kind of the philosophy that he's approached this offseason. It is going to be really interesting to watch. Oh, one final thing I wanted to pitch you on. Have you done any reporting or asking around on the,

Kevin LeBank situation in terms of the one-year deal he signed last summer and then the deal he got this year. Was there any sort of a kind of wink-wink under the table shenanigans there or was it all above board? Well, I can't get any confirmation from anybody from the sharks. And I don't think they're ever going to answer that question. Well, legally, I would hope they would. Yeah. But I can tell you that I have talked to people from other organizations and they're sure that's what happened. because that deal last year was so, you know, one million for one year off of a 56-point season, you know,

unprecedented, really. I wrote about that. It was like a record-setting contract for just how low it was, you know, for a guy that produced, you know, like he did. And so, you know, people are still convinced that that there was something in place there. And so that's why, you know, Doug Wilson honored kind of his word and gave LeBank a pretty rich contract this pass-off season for, you know, not so good a year. But I think one of the funny things about that, too, is though, that even though the bank did take that one year, one million dollar deal, presumably to, you know, help the

sharks and whatnot, that they didn't really sign anybody with, with that money. Anyway, that's a side, but I just find that funny about all that situation. So anyway, I do to summarize, I think the belief is still super strong that that is exactly what happened, but there's no confirmation on it, though. Yeah, it definitely seems like it. And good for him. I'm glad he wound up getting that near $20 million or whatever he got this suburb because his performance certainly dipped and it would have been kind of a cautionary tale in terms of

doing teams of favor because you kind of have to take advantage of the leverage while you have it in this league because it can be fleeting. Shang, plug some stuff. Where can people find you, check out your work, follow you on Twitter, all that stuff? Yeah, just find all my work at San Jose Hockey Now. And you can find me on Twitter at Shang. underscore peng. Awesome.

Well, that's easy enough. This was a blast, man. I'm glad we got to do this. It was quite the show. Hopefully, it wasn't too depressing for Sharks fans. And we'll have to have you back on sometime down the road to see if we get answers to those questions of how Doug Wilson will approach this moment forward. Yeah, awesome. Anytime, man.

All right. That's going to be for today's episode of the Hockey PEOCast. Hopefully you enjoy the deep dive that I just did with Shang Pang. If you are a Sharks fan and you're really depressed after listening to it, fear or not because the next rewatchable we're going to do is going to be one with a special guest, and we're going to be deep diving game seven of the infamous 2019 first round matchup between the sharks and the Golden Knights. So you have that to look forward to and it'll have a much more positive ending for you than this show had.

We will also be rewatching at some point here down the road. And we have a plan to do Minnesota Wild versus Colorado Avalanche, first round, game seven, 2014. A lot of Patrick Waugh stuff to discuss. So that's going to be fun. And we're also going to keep the rebuildable shows coming with the New Jersey Devils up next. So we've got that planned. And it's going to be a fun couple weeks here. And if you have been enjoying these shows during the off season, please consider going and leaving us a quick rating and review.

It's really easy to do. And honestly, if you're just going to leave the five stars, which we appreciate greatly, it takes a minute. If you want to leave us a quick little blur that either explains why you enjoy it. enjoy the show or why you recommend people listen to it. That's also obviously going above and beyond. And I love when people do that. Dylan Fremlin left the most recent one on there on iTunes. And it includes a nice little reference to Mark Fraser's 2012-13 PDO that the game made a chuckle. So I always love to see those. So yeah, thanks to those of you that have done so already. If you haven't, even holding out, hopefully that'll convince you to do so.

And we will be back next week with some new PDOCast. So until then, here. is the outro music.