Habster:
Doug Wilson has been very patience with his team’s lack of playoff success to this point in his mandate as the Sharks GM but will undoubtedly look to shake things up a bit before next season.
As Ray Ratto mentions in his article, Doug Wilson won’t admit it but Joe Thornton and Evgeni Nabokov are definite “untouchable”.
I would think there are also some very good young players like Milan Michalek, Devin Setoguchi, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Christian Ehrhoff, Joe Pavelski and Matt Carle who Wilson will be very reluctant to part with unless he can get something substantial in return.
One thing is certain, if Wilson can find takers for veterans like Patrick Marleau (who is still owed $12.6 million over 2 years), Craig Rivet and Jonathan Cheechoo, then he will make the moves to change the make up/mind set of his roster.
If I were Bob Gainey, I would inquire about Mike Grier and Kyle McLaren to add more grit and playoff type players to the Canadiens roster. McLaren is a big mobile, shutdown type defenseman who would be an excellent addition to the lineup and give Ryan O’Byrne some much needed NHL adjustment time on the third defensive pairing. Mike Grier is a gritty, good skating two way forward who is an incredible penalty killer (the Sharks were the best PK unit in the NHL last season with a 85.8% success rate largely because of Grier).
The only problem is that both of these players are eligible to become UFAs after next season but could be re-signed to reasonable deals.
Doug Wilson could attempt to re-sign these players but if he isn’t successful then he might want to hang onto them until next year’s trading deadline when he could get a higher return.
Anyhow, it should be an interesting off season with some big changes occurring before/during draft day as well as after July 1st when the UFA feeding frenzy occurs.