The list is becoming long, but not particularly notable. It appears Marcel Goc, Mike Grier, Tomas Plihal, Brian Boucher, Lukas Kaspar, Claude Lemieux and Alexei Semenov will not be returning to the San Jose Sharks next season. Travis Moen and Kent Huskins could also join that list in the near future, and we're still waiting to see whether Jeremy Roenick is going to pack it in or return for one more injury-shortened season. Truly, it is a terrible time to be a Shark fan.

It's a terrible time because the Sharks have a lot of bodies heading out the door, but don't have the cap space to replace them with anything but less-than-promising prospects or minimum-wage veterans. Who's going to replace Goc, Grier and Boucher? At the moment, the answer appears to be Jamie McGinn, Brad Staubitz and Thomas Greiss, three players who are younger and cheaper, but not better.

Salary strain means that Shark fans can't expect any marquee free agents to arrive over the next couple days, weeks or months. San Jose general manager Doug Wilson has painted himself into a corner, with approximately $6 million in cap space remaining while Greiss, Ryane Clowe, Torrey Mitchell and Brad Staubitz float in RFA limbo.

It would be nice to dump Jonathan Cheechoo's $3 million cap hit, but his market value has shrunk to the size of a pistachio over the last two seasons, making him practically unmovable. Milan Michalek's $4.3 million cap hit is also unsightly, and it's hard to justify Evgeni Nabokov's $5.3 million hit when much better, younger goalies are making much less.

Meanwhile, the Sharks' prospect pool has fallen into the bottom five in the league (and that might be generous) without a single blue-chipper in the system or anyone banging on the door for a roster spot in October. Wilson's horrible asset management has left the Sharks with more first-round exits than first-round draft picks over the last two years, and the rebuild is going to be long and painful when the team's window of contention finally slams shut.

Finally, the same glaring needs that have existed for the last four years (toughness, resiliency, leadership) keep waiting to be addressed. Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton are still on the roster, and it's hard to see anything changing until one or both of them are playing elsewhere. Perhaps Wilson should finally follow his own advice and bring in a little more will, rather than skill. I suppose he's doing that already, because you won't find much skill on the team's depth lines after this round of subtraction by subtraction.

Following the Sharks' embarrassing playoff loss to the Ducks, coaches and management talked at length about that quality, the importance of will over skill. Well, the Sharks never had much of the former, and they're beginning to run short on the latter.

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Rob Blake signed a one-year, $3.5 million deal on Tuesday. The move rounded out the Sharks' top six defenseman from last season, and we could see that same unit at the beginning of the season. Blake provides some offense and leadership, but he's weak defensively and undisciplined play is a staple of his game. One fan e-mailed me a couple weeks ago that he had recently seen the veteran defenseman at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Blake's team was trailing 3-2 with three minutes remaining, so he crosschecked his waitress in the face.

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Ryane Clowe negotiations are ongoing, but the market has already been established by Boston's David Krejci, who signed a three-year, $11.25 million deal. Clowe shouldn't approach that at all, since Krejci is four years younger and had 21 more points last season. Clowe is listed at 6'2", 225, while Krejci is 6', 178, but the Sharks winger looked 5'8", 178 during the second half of the season and the playoffs.

ryan.garner@hockeybuzz.com

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