NHL Trade Deadline: San Jose Sharks Fans and Management Must Stay the Course

There are countless factors that go into winning the Stanley Cup. We can present these questions—Which goalie gets the hottest? Which players produce the farthest above their normal level? Which team gets that lucky bounce?

But ultimately, these questions are unanswerable, and not even predictable.

We can look at variables like track record, a team's record in the final two months, age, etc. but none of these factors really add up to much more than a few percentage points of likelihood.

However, there are three fundamental questions that we can not only ask, but more accurately answer: Which teams won their division, which team is the healthiest, and which team is the deepest?

The division winner that is the most healthy and/or the most deep is almost always the Stanley Cup champion.

Winning your division is the apparent prerequisite to contending for the Cup these days. In the past ten seasons, only one non-division winner won the Cup, and they were still a fourth seed...with Sidney Crosby.

The division title is imperative for a couple of reasons. First of all, it means a top three seed and home ice for at least one and usually two rounds.

Winning your division also means you're better than the other teams in your division, whereas your conference standing depends on strength of schedule.

For example, the Canucks were better than the Flames last year, because they both played Minnesota, Edmonton, and Colorado six times each. However, the Canucks were not necessarily better than the Red Wings, who had to play Nashville, Chicago, St. Louis, and Columbus six times.

If you don't win your division, you aren't the best team in your conference. If you do win your division, you might be—even if you finish in third. Which is where the Sharks are right now.

San Jose currently sits atop the Pacific Division, two points and two games in hand ahead of Phoenix. However, they are 13 points behind second place Vancouver and 15 points behind first place Detroit. They have games in hand, but only two on the Canucks and three on the Red Wings.

It seems as if the overwhelming majority of Sharks fans and writers are worried about their team's position. These concerns are valid. We don't want our team to be the third-best, we want them to be the best.

However, it's not that simple.

Vancouver plays in the Northwest, the weakest division in the Western Conference. The Canucks currently have 29 points from divisional games. San Jose has 14 so far playing in the much tougher Pacific.

In other words, take away divisional play, and San Jose is better than Vancouver this year. Come playoff time, Vancouver will not benefit from their weak division.

That isn't to say that San Jose is better than Detroit or Vancouver. The Red Wings play in the toughest division of all and are still first in the Conference. And the Canucks seem to almost always beat the Sharks.

One could also say that the Canucks play in the weakest division and still aren't in first, or that the Sharks always seem to beat the Red Wings. Either way, we are almost certain that one of these three teams is the best in the Conference.

After you eliminate all non-division winners (from your projections, of course), the determining factor is almost always health and/or depth. The reason that these can be grouped together is that oftentimes, good health masks bad depth, and vice versa. 

However, there comes a point when health must win out. The Sharks most recent game against the Red Wings is a perfect example of why.

In that game on Feb. 19, San Jose was without Martin Havlat, Benn Ferriero, James Sheppard, Douglas Murray, and Jim Vandermeer. That means they were missing two key players (health), and two guys that would normally replace them (depth).

Despite the injuries, the Sharks are so deep that they were able to replace Murray and Vandermeer with NHL-level players in Jason Demers and Colin White. They then replaced Havlat and Ferriero with Tommy Wingels and Andrew Desjardins.

This still left San Jose at a considerable disadvantage. But when another key player left the game (Marc-Edouard Vlasic), while another missed many key shifts (Joe Pavelski), and everyone else became more and more tired with more shifts to cover, the team simply could not recover.

That game functions as a microcosmic example of how enough injuries can destroy a team—even a very deep one.

Doug Wilson is one of hockey's best general managers, piecing together a deep roster. Sadly, injuries have in many ways gotten the better of that roster thus far.

Wilson made the roster even deeper last week, trading for versatile forward Dominic Moore. Many Sharks fans consider this to be overkill, as Team Teal now has 15 forwards and eight defenseman (23 skaters) they feel comfortable using, even in playoff games.

As a result, one common request from fans is that Wilson trade away this depth for one significantly better forward. This would be a dangerous road to go down.

If the Sharks move, say, Torrey Mitchell, Jason Demers, and Jamie McGinn for a gritty top-six forward, they will be down to 21 skaters. Remember, health can compensate for lack of depth—but health is unpredictable.

Martin Havlat has missed most of the season, and nobody knows if he'll be effective when and if he returns. James Sheppard is almost certainly not going to make any impact this year. And the list of "day-to-day" or "banged up" players is already long, and tends to grow at this time of year.

Noticing flaws is easy, even when your team is a contender. However, there is more than one team out there that wants the Cup this year. Red Wings fans may worry about their team's age, ability to beat San Jose, and road record. Rangers fans may worry about their team's lack of scoring punch.

If only one team can win the Cup, then all but one team is good enough to. No one knows which team that will be, and if you're a fan of them, you probably still feel like your team is flawed.

Bluntly put, this is probably not the Sharks' year. But fans can take solace in the fact that it probably isn't Detroit's year, nor Vancouver's, nor New York's. Even if one of those team's makes a big move, they will most likely not accomplish their ultimate goal.

If San Jose brings in a gritty top-six forward, several questions would instantly arise. Is he better than Martin Havlat, a 60-point guy with speed and puck-possession skills? Is he any more likely to elevate his game than Havlat is come the playoffs?

Will the third line suffer without Mitchell and McGinn more than the second line will improve? Will someone else get hurt, and this move leave the Sharks with less depth to replace him with?

Obviously, if things work out perfectly, the move becomes brilliant. The new guy gels instantly, has a huge impact in the playoffs, Havlat and Ferriero more than replace McGinn and Mitchell on the third line, and everyone stays healthy so that Moore, Desjardins, and Sheppard can make up the fourth line rather than Wingels and say, John McCarthy, and Frazer McLaren.

But if everything works out perfectly, Havlat will return healthy and give the team a huge boost. The third line will continue to click. The competition for a spot in the lineup will keep the fourth line fiery.

The fact is that everything will not work out perfectly, and not even Doug Wilson can know which players will step up, which will fade, which will get hurt, and which will get healthy. All a GM can do is prepare his team as well as possible, and that's what San Jose's depth does.

This Sharks team is well constructed. They have a deadly top-six when healthy, a bunch of gritty depth forwards, a scary-good top four on defense, and a good mix of depth defenseman. The way San Jose's season is starting to head health-wise, this simply may not be their year, and no trade—especially one that weakens the team's depth—can save them from injuries.

But if this team gets healthy and they win the Pacific (which they are in great position to do), then they are—like Boston, New York, Detroit, and Vancouver—a hot goalie, some hot goal-scorers, a heroic fourth-liner, and a couple of lucky bounces away from their first-ever Stanley Cup.

And while those things are all unpredictable, we at least know this: San Jose is due for some lucky bounces.