San Jose Sharks: First Off-Season Trade Suggestion

(Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)

The San Jose Sharks have recently signed two Nashville players as free agents—C Scott Nichol and RW Jed Ortmeyer, giving the Sharks two more legitimate checking forwards. They also re-signed forward Ryan Vesce, and added two others with extremely limited NHL experience in Joe Callahan and Dwight Helminen.

Unfortunately, there is currently no way to get these players on to the NHL roster under the salary cap. Worse yet, there is no cap room to sign very important players they have tendered qualifying offers to (RW Brad Staubitz, C Torrey Mitchell, and the team's current projected backup goalie, Thomas Greiss).

This leaves the Sharks two forwards and one goalie short of a complete roster, and with only one additional defenceman—i.e. at least two players not on the current roster will have to be added just to field an entire team. Since carrying fewer than two scratched players is unwise and unheard of, you can count on that number being four.

This necessitates that expensive players be replaced with a higher volume of less expensive alternatives. As outlined in the last article, the Sharks are less likely to send players to the minors than they are to trade them, and the seven most likely players to be moved were listed.

In this series, teams most likely to be interested in those players are examined. As just about every team will have an interest in at least one of the Sharks on that list, the place to start is with teams most in the market to make moves. This article deals with the first option for a trade; new articles posted regularly will deal with other options.

Ottawa Senators

Every true hockey is aware that, even though he has a no-trade clause, Dany Heatley has requested a trade and the team is trying to oblige. And while it may appear that Heatley is a malcontent for demanding he be shipped off from a second team, there is good reason the Sharks appear to still be interested.

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