Update: Sharks Acquire Nabokov so he can retire a Shark.
“@SanJoseSharks acquire Evgeni Nabokov from @TBLightning. Announcement on Nabokov's future Wed. http://t.co/5GzG8Z813s… Retire as a Shark.
— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) February 9, 2015On to the blog..
The Sharks are back in action tonight to face the Calgary Flames again. There’s not much left to say about these two teams playing against each other.
Calgary gives San Jose a whole heap of trouble, similar to the trouble the Sharks gave the Ducks all season, and tonight should be no different. It’s going to require a sixty minute effort from team teal if they want to remain in good order in the standings.
Injury Updates:
Mike Brown is not close to returning, per David Pollak. To that I say: oh well. Brown isn’t an impact player that will make the Sharks suddenly a Cup contender so it doesn’t hurt my heart any that he’s not going to be in the lineup anytime soon. Who would the Sharks remove from the lineup for him? Tarasov? Tierney? No thanks.
Tommy Wingels is getting close to returning, per Pollak again. This is great news. The Sharks could use Wingels, especially if Tierney takes over 3C with success. That would place Sheppard in a more natural habitat of 4C and, well, the pool just gets deeper.
Marc-Edouard Vlasic is on IR, as noted yesterday. There was talk of an upper-body injury, a cold and a whole lot of confusion around Vlasic. Whatever it is, it’s keeping him out of tonight’s game against the Flames. That thud you just heard was the scale slamming down on the Flames side.
Sharks Trade Rumor
Bruce Garrioch, in his Sunday column, of the Ottawa Sun had this little tidbit to pass along about the Sharks when talking about Doug Wilson.
Sources say he’s held talks with Arizona (don’t call me Phoenix) Coyotes GM Don Maloney about the possibility of acquiring defenceman Zybnek Michalek.
Let’s take a closer look at Michalek while we acknowledge Doug Wilson still has a pulse.
Salary/Term: $4M/Pending UFA
I’ll be honest, I don’t really give a sweet you-know-what about pending UFA status. The Sharks aren’t at the top of the NHL looking to make a push for the Stanley Cup. They are, however, in desperate need of a top four defender. There is no rule that you can’t resign a player who is a pending UFA before he actual hits the market. Everyone sees pending UFA and cries rental player immediately. It’s not a rental if you plan to sign him to an extension – which is what you have to believe Wilson is interested in if you believe his comments about rental players last month.
Age: 32
This I’m not a fan of. Andrej Sekera is 28 and Cody Franson is 27. A defender who is 32 might as well begin aging in dog years. Perhaps the price was too high for Sekera/Franson? I’ll hope that’s the reason that Wilson is reportedly chasing a 32 year old defender for a non-Cup contending team.
The Stats
It’s pretty easy to sit back and say that Oliver Ekman-Larsson is his defensive pairing and that Michalek is being carried by the young stud. That would also be a pretty lazy statement.
Michalek and Ekman-Larsson have spent the majority of the season together at 5v5 and they have a 51.2% CF% when they’re together. When they’re apart – albeit a small amount of time – Michalek’s CF% goes up to 55.0% and OEL’s stays generally the same at 51.6%. So we can cross off the fantasy that Michalek exists solely because of OEL.
Let’s line up Michalek against Burns, Braun and Vlasic, as well as Franson and Sekera.
Michalek faces higher competition than all of them and still hovers around the same CF% as the top of the list. It’s also worth noting that Michalek (43.0) is second only to Cody Franson (41.8) in having the lowest offensive zone start percentage.
To be perfectly honest, I’d wager a good amount that Franson’s stats wouldn’t be near as poor if he wasn’t on such a possession-challenged hockey team like the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Moving on.
Michalek is no slouch in shots against/scoring chances against, either. He has the lowest SA60 out of the group of defenders at 26.7. Vlasic is second lowest with 26.9. He also boasts the lowest scoring chances against at 23.5. Vlasic, again, is second lowest at 25.8.
Zbynek Michalek is a defensive defender, and he’s a pretty solid one. His style of play and the subsequent results are exactly what the Sharks need to have inserted into their lineup. The only thing that bothers me is the age of the player.
Andrej Sekera would be my number one choice of the three mentioned, but settling for Michalek wouldn’t be so bad if the term on an extension was right. He definitely fits the bill for San Jose from a needs point of view, but how much does he have left in the tank at a highly effective level? Would he be willing to extend for only three years? I doubt it. Four? If the dollar figure was big enough, maybe. Five years? Now we’re talking Michalek’s agent’s language.
The Sharks need to fill holes, but they also have to consider the bang-for-buck figure. A five year extension to Michalek puts him at 37 years old, whereas a 5 year extension to Sekera puts him at 33. There’s a huge difference. Michalek would be an upgrade on the blueline for San Jose, but for how long?
Thanks for reading.
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