Sharks Moves

It's been awhile since I last talked about the San Jose Sharks. If you don't follow hockey you can safely assume that means they didn't win the Stanley Cup, and in the end that's all that matters. We got about as far as we did last year. So what will it take to get us to the Stanley Cup Finals? Apparently General Manager Doug Wilson thinks unloading Devin Setoguchi and Dany Heatley for Brent Burns and Martin Havlat from the Minnesota North Stars Wild are, if nothing else, steps in the right directions.

That's right, fan favorite, and teenage girl heart throb, Devin Setoguchi who just signed a new contract with San Jose is now a Minnesota Wild. In fact the trade happened so quickly after the contract was signed I doubt the ink had dried. I liked Devin. He had a lot of potential, had moments of greatness, was likable, and hard working. All things you like in a player. There were no publicly aired issues with him in the locker room, and from his brief time on Twitter he seemed to genuinely like his teammates and they liked him, so I was surprised that he got traded. Brent Burns though is an all star defenseman which is what the Sharks needed down the stretch in the play offs. This move instantly improves our d-corps and has little effect up front. I'll miss Devin but I'm looking forward to him being able to grow in Minnesota, and us going all the way next year.

Then, over the holiday weekend, word comes out that Dany Heatley got traded. I'm not going to lie, I've not been a fan of Heatley. I didn't like how he force a trade to get to San Jose, it was LeBron-esque though without the TV special. That being said, there's no denying the man can shoot and score. His production was down significantly this year due to injuries, but even so I didn't see this coming, even if I did hope for it. Martin Havlat is a quality name winger that number's wise doesn't quite match Heatley, but may be able to do things better than Heatley did, such as going to the net, playing defense, and not disappearing after the regular season. I can't say I'll miss Heatley, I just hope Havlat will fill in to the point where we all forget about #15.

Other Sharks not coming back so far include Kent Whoskins Huskins, Ian White, and Jamal Mayers to highlight some of the Sharks moving on to other teams. If you couldn't guess I won't miss Huskins or Mayers, but I will miss Ian White, but can understand that he was made expendable by Burns and our upcoming players. It's only July, but I'm already getting excited for the puck to drop on the 2011-2012 season in October!