San Jose Sharks - A look at Doug Wilson's record Part Two
As you read this please keep in mind that I am not trying to analyze every single player movement of the Doug Wilson era, just the ones that I feel had a significant impact on the franchise.
Doug Wilson started his tenure as San Jose Sharks GM by signing most of the core of his team to extensions or new contracts. This is noteworthy because one of the things that doomed Dean Lombardi (Wilson's predecessor) was a series of problems he had with players holding out. The year Lombardi was fired saw goalie Evgeni Nabokov and defenseman Brad Stuart hold out and miss not only the entire training camp but parts of the regular season. Lombardi then fired coach Darryl Sutter and hired Ron Wilson. When the coaching change failed to spark the team Lombardi had a fire sale which included trading franchise face Owen Nolan for Alyn McCauley and Brad Boyes and a first round pick which would later turn into Steve Bernier. By signing his key players Wilson showed he had learned from one of Lombardi's mistakes. WIlson though had the luxury of higher payrolls to work with, so for all of this I give Wilson a +1.
Wilson's first big trade, sending Miikka Kiprusoff to Calgary to play for ex-coach Darryl Sutter for a second round pick. This one maybe came back to bite the Sharks in the ass as Kipper turned into a world class goaltender and would beat the Sharks in the conference finals. I think they used the pick to get Marc Eduard Vlasic and while Vlasic is goign to be a good D-Man, I would rather not have watched the Sharks have to play Kipper in the playoffs. So, -1 here.
His big spring trade for the 2004 season was getting Curtis Brown as part of a three team trade for Jeff Jillson and a ninth round pick. +/- is 0 on this one because one of the players he lost was Brad Boyes, acquired in the Owen Nolan trade mentioned above. Boyes has had a couple of really good seasons and, has he stayed, might have addressed some of the Sharks scoring needs sooner. Brown did make contributions to the team and they got back to the playoffs only to get bounced in the conference finals.
Flash forward, it's 2005 and the Sharks seem headed nowhere fast. Wilson pulled off what, at the time, was considered the steal of the century getting Joe Thornton fron Boston for Brad Stuart, Marco Sturm and Wayne Primeau. A lot of people have deconstructed this trade since it happened. A case might be made that the Sharks might be a stronger playoff team with Stuart and Sturm in the line-up. But currently only Sturm is still with the Bruins and the trade cost the Bruins GM his job. The Sharks have been one of the top teams in the league since Thornton got here and I believe his presence helped turn Jonathan Cheechoo into a 50 goal scorer and is primed to do the same to Devon Setoguchi.
This one is a +1, it should be a plus two except for the fact that Thornton has still not had a consistent post-season.
Acquired a 2006 second-round pick from the Columbus Blue Jackets for 2006 third- and fourth-round picks and a 2007 second-round pick. This pick turned into Jamie McGinn, so I like this trade because I am personally high on McGinn. So, +1
This is where things get interesting, and more than a little hard to analyze.
Jump ahead to 2007, now Wilson is trying to make things happen. The Sharks are in the bottom half of the playoff picture and had been inconsistent all season. From an observers point of view it seemed like Wilson got suddenly anxious and tired of waiting for the young players on the team to come together.
He had made a trade for Mark Bell in the off-season. losing defenseman Tom Preissing who had 43 points in what seemed to have been a breakout season, and then signed him to a big contract which he was not living up to (earning Wilson a -2) so with a stockpile of draft picks, he made some big moves.
First, he sent Josh Gorges and their first round pick to the Montreal Canadians for Craig Rivet. Two days later he sent Ville Nieminen, Jay Barriball and yet another first round pick to St. Louis for Bill Guerin.
This one is a tough one to judge. Guerin played well in the 16 games he was in for the Sharks, scoring 8 goals and tossing in an assist. Rivet immediately helped the Sharks power play and helped get the puck out of the zone to the forwards, getting seven assists in 17 games. Rivet also stood out as a leader and would later sign a four year contract to stay in San Jose.
Guerin left after the season was over, going to the Islanders. He would eventually land with the Penguins and do all the things in the playoffs that the Sharks had hoped he would do in San Jose. Nieminen never scored a point for the Blues and is no longer in the league. Bariball has not yet played in the NHL and is a grade D prospect according to Hockeysfuture.com. The focus on this becomes what happened to the draft picks.
AT season's end the Sharks wound up with no first round pick, but Wilson did some maneuvering and wound up getting rid of Bell, clearing up a logjam at goaltender by trading Vesa Toskala, both to Toronto and then wound up with a first round pick which became Logan Coture.
Deconstructing this whole thing is kind of maddening, but you almost have to treat this like one big transaction. So it becomes Nieminem, Bariball, a first round pick for nothing, or you toss in Bell and Toskala and maybe Presissing and say it was a six player, multi-pick multi-team trade to get Couture.
Yeah, I know, not totally fair to look at it that way, but that is the end result of all that movement since the intention of the original move, trading for Guerin for the playoffs and to get to the Stanley Cup Finals, did not pan out. So I rate it this way, figuring Rivet as a separate thing that needs separate analysis.
So, if you're keeping track:
Getting players under contract and avoiding long holdouts: +1
Kiprosoff trade. -1
Thornton trade. +1
Trading up to get Jamie McGinn, +1
Trade for Guerin, -2 because the Sharks lost a pick and did not get past the second round of the playoffs.
Trade for Rivet -1. Rivet contributed and did stick around, but ended up losing a first round pick. Gorges helped The Habs make it to the conference finals, shutting down some pretty big-time forwards in series against Washington and Pittsburgh and is the epitome of a stay-at-home defenseman.
Bell Signing above as I said -2.
Trading an excess goalie and the disappointing Bell to get Couture, +1 for now, but this might not have been needed and they could have made themselves even stronger had they kept the pick from the Guerin trade and still made the Bell/Toskala deal.
So for this segment Wilson is -2, combined with the two point I gave him from part one of this that makes him even.
Next, more trades and free agent signings.
Doug Wilson started his tenure as San Jose Sharks GM by signing most of the core of his team to extensions or new contracts. This is noteworthy because one of the things that doomed Dean Lombardi (Wilson's predecessor) was a series of problems he had with players holding out. The year Lombardi was fired saw goalie Evgeni Nabokov and defenseman Brad Stuart hold out and miss not only the entire training camp but parts of the regular season. Lombardi then fired coach Darryl Sutter and hired Ron Wilson. When the coaching change failed to spark the team Lombardi had a fire sale which included trading franchise face Owen Nolan for Alyn McCauley and Brad Boyes and a first round pick which would later turn into Steve Bernier. By signing his key players Wilson showed he had learned from one of Lombardi's mistakes. WIlson though had the luxury of higher payrolls to work with, so for all of this I give Wilson a +1.
Wilson's first big trade, sending Miikka Kiprusoff to Calgary to play for ex-coach Darryl Sutter for a second round pick. This one maybe came back to bite the Sharks in the ass as Kipper turned into a world class goaltender and would beat the Sharks in the conference finals. I think they used the pick to get Marc Eduard Vlasic and while Vlasic is goign to be a good D-Man, I would rather not have watched the Sharks have to play Kipper in the playoffs. So, -1 here.
His big spring trade for the 2004 season was getting Curtis Brown as part of a three team trade for Jeff Jillson and a ninth round pick. +/- is 0 on this one because one of the players he lost was Brad Boyes, acquired in the Owen Nolan trade mentioned above. Boyes has had a couple of really good seasons and, has he stayed, might have addressed some of the Sharks scoring needs sooner. Brown did make contributions to the team and they got back to the playoffs only to get bounced in the conference finals.
Flash forward, it's 2005 and the Sharks seem headed nowhere fast. Wilson pulled off what, at the time, was considered the steal of the century getting Joe Thornton fron Boston for Brad Stuart, Marco Sturm and Wayne Primeau. A lot of people have deconstructed this trade since it happened. A case might be made that the Sharks might be a stronger playoff team with Stuart and Sturm in the line-up. But currently only Sturm is still with the Bruins and the trade cost the Bruins GM his job. The Sharks have been one of the top teams in the league since Thornton got here and I believe his presence helped turn Jonathan Cheechoo into a 50 goal scorer and is primed to do the same to Devon Setoguchi.
This one is a +1, it should be a plus two except for the fact that Thornton has still not had a consistent post-season.
Acquired a 2006 second-round pick from the Columbus Blue Jackets for 2006 third- and fourth-round picks and a 2007 second-round pick. This pick turned into Jamie McGinn, so I like this trade because I am personally high on McGinn. So, +1
This is where things get interesting, and more than a little hard to analyze.
Jump ahead to 2007, now Wilson is trying to make things happen. The Sharks are in the bottom half of the playoff picture and had been inconsistent all season. From an observers point of view it seemed like Wilson got suddenly anxious and tired of waiting for the young players on the team to come together.
He had made a trade for Mark Bell in the off-season. losing defenseman Tom Preissing who had 43 points in what seemed to have been a breakout season, and then signed him to a big contract which he was not living up to (earning Wilson a -2) so with a stockpile of draft picks, he made some big moves.
First, he sent Josh Gorges and their first round pick to the Montreal Canadians for Craig Rivet. Two days later he sent Ville Nieminen, Jay Barriball and yet another first round pick to St. Louis for Bill Guerin.
This one is a tough one to judge. Guerin played well in the 16 games he was in for the Sharks, scoring 8 goals and tossing in an assist. Rivet immediately helped the Sharks power play and helped get the puck out of the zone to the forwards, getting seven assists in 17 games. Rivet also stood out as a leader and would later sign a four year contract to stay in San Jose.
Guerin left after the season was over, going to the Islanders. He would eventually land with the Penguins and do all the things in the playoffs that the Sharks had hoped he would do in San Jose. Nieminen never scored a point for the Blues and is no longer in the league. Bariball has not yet played in the NHL and is a grade D prospect according to Hockeysfuture.com. The focus on this becomes what happened to the draft picks.
AT season's end the Sharks wound up with no first round pick, but Wilson did some maneuvering and wound up getting rid of Bell, clearing up a logjam at goaltender by trading Vesa Toskala, both to Toronto and then wound up with a first round pick which became Logan Coture.
Deconstructing this whole thing is kind of maddening, but you almost have to treat this like one big transaction. So it becomes Nieminem, Bariball, a first round pick for nothing, or you toss in Bell and Toskala and maybe Presissing and say it was a six player, multi-pick multi-team trade to get Couture.
Yeah, I know, not totally fair to look at it that way, but that is the end result of all that movement since the intention of the original move, trading for Guerin for the playoffs and to get to the Stanley Cup Finals, did not pan out. So I rate it this way, figuring Rivet as a separate thing that needs separate analysis.
So, if you're keeping track:
Getting players under contract and avoiding long holdouts: +1
Kiprosoff trade. -1
Thornton trade. +1
Trading up to get Jamie McGinn, +1
Trade for Guerin, -2 because the Sharks lost a pick and did not get past the second round of the playoffs.
Trade for Rivet -1. Rivet contributed and did stick around, but ended up losing a first round pick. Gorges helped The Habs make it to the conference finals, shutting down some pretty big-time forwards in series against Washington and Pittsburgh and is the epitome of a stay-at-home defenseman.
Bell Signing above as I said -2.
Trading an excess goalie and the disappointing Bell to get Couture, +1 for now, but this might not have been needed and they could have made themselves even stronger had they kept the pick from the Guerin trade and still made the Bell/Toskala deal.
So for this segment Wilson is -2, combined with the two point I gave him from part one of this that makes him even.
Next, more trades and free agent signings.
Comments
When I was a little bit older. around 1990-91 I lived in a house with a bunch of my fellow valley skate punks. This house stood about center ice where the stadium is now.
Looking forward to part 3.
DV
Meant to say my dad's lawyer had an office where the Tank sits.
Sheesh. No wonder hardly anyone takes me seriously.