San Jose Sharks: Top 5 Team MVP Candidates of 2011
On a team packed with offensive production and defensive talent like the San Jose Sharks, it can be hard to decide who your best player is. However, with the year winding down, it comes time for the ever present debate over not only the league MVP but also the MVP of each team.
Each of the 30 NHL teams has him—that one guy who makes the difference in most games between winning and losing. While being a team MVP isn’t all about big flashy numbers, putting points on the board helps not only yourself, but your team as well.
There are many roles an MVP can play. There are the playmakers who are typically defensemen or centers who play the puck selflessly and allow other players to put the puck home for the goals. You have the pure goal scorers who just drive goalies mad. And last but not least, there are the pure defensemen who risk their body and play physical hockey to keep the opposing team from scoring.
There are some of each on the Sharks and these five players exemplify the best of those categories. From old vets to young guns, this team has it all and has a strong chance of pushing deep into the playoffs. However, much like Highlanders, there can only be one team MVP, and we at Bleacher Report set out to find him.
Just to preview, it was hard to do, but Joe Thornton gets an honorable mention right here...but did not make the cut on this list. There were simply too many more complete choices.
5. Jason Demers (D)
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Twenty-two-year-old Jason Demers isn’t the most physical defenseman in the Bay Area. He also isn’t the best shot blocker. He does know, however, how to score points from the back end and is far and away the most successful at keeping the puck out of the net when he is on the ice.
In 68 games this year, he is plus-14, second to only on the team to center Logan Couture. The next two closest defensemen on the team to that mark are tied—Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Kent Huskins.
In that time, he has also factored in on 21 goals and has two of his own. His assist total is second only to Dan Boyle among San Jose defensemen and a solid eighth overall for the Sharks—one behind the aforementioned Couture.
At a paltry $543,333 salary this year, Demers has to be the steal of the century and will be big in the playoffs for San Jose in only his second season in the NHL. No wonder the Sharks already extended him for two more years at $1.25 million.
4. Dany Heatley (RW)
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San Jose loves its centers, but they adore their veteran right winger just as much. He is coming off an unfortunate two-game suspension for a headshot elbow to Dallas’ Steve Ott last week and will look to get right back into the swing of things offensively for the Sharks.
He isn’t quite on pace for the one-point-per-game season he had last year, but he’s no slouch. He will start every game of the season—minus the two he was suspended—for the third season in a row and for the sixth time in his nine-year NHL career.
Heatley also has netted 24 goals and 34 assists this year on the front lines for San Jose, while still staying above water at a plus-three mark. That’s five better than team captain Joe Thornton, 10 better than Devin Setoguchi and 11 better than team scoring leader Patrick Marleau.
He has also been a physical presence, ranking behind only Setoguchi and Ryane Clowe in hits among San Jose’s top line forwards this season. He is their most expensive player, but he earns that money every day and leaves everything he has to give the team and the fans on the ice. San Jose can’t ask for much more than that.
3. Joe Pavelski (C)
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One assist behind team assist leader Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski is the epitome of a playmaking center in today’s NHL. What he does that truly sets him apart, however, is playing two-way hockey better than almost any star center in the league.
He is a plus-one in 67 games played and has 17 goals and 43 assists in that same amount of play time, a better points and assists per game average than any of his teammates. He also leads San Jose’s top line centers in faceoff win percentage at 55 percent and has kept his nose clean with only 11 minor penalties all season—a mark only bested among the Sharks by Patrick Marleau with seven.
When the puck is in his own end, however, Pavelski is fearless. He leads all Sharks forwards with 63 blocked shots and battles hard for the puck earning 45 takeaways—good enough for third best among team forwards.
Combine all that with his opposing goalie pounding and team leading 254 shots and his 75 missed shot mark, which is better than both Heatley and Marleau, and you have a recipe for a team MVP candidate that is sure to “wow” the judges, no matter who is deciding the winner.
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2. Dan Boyle (D)
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You have to look far and wide to find many better defensemen in the NHL this year than Dan Boyle. For San Jose, he is third among defensemen in blocked shots, tied for first in takeaways and an even fourth in hits with 50.
However, as strong as he is on the back end, he is a puck movement genius on the point in the offensive zone, especially when part of the third best power play unit in the league. Boyle has 44 points this season, 38 from assists and 26 points on the power play alone. Averaging .64 PPG, he gets on the stat sheet almost twice as often as the next starting defenseman, Jason Demers, who was already on this list.
He is 34 years old and still manages around 26 minutes a game of brilliant hockey and is worth every penny the Sharks pay him—which is good because he costs $6,666,667 million a year and will continue earning that for the next three seasons. Sure sounds like money well spent.
1. Patrick Marleau (C)
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When you have a player who leads your starting forwards in points, goals, power-play goals, shorthanded goals, game-winning goals, overtime goals, time on ice, shifts and is only second in shots taken and shooting percentage, you not only have a mouthful, you have an MVP.
Marleau is on pace for his second straight 82 game season in his 13th straight season with the Sharks, who drafted him second overall way back in 1997. At 6’2” and 220 pounds, the native of Saskatchewan is a big forward who imposes his will on the ice with 84 hits and always has his head in the game taking only 14 minutes of penalties all season—a team leading mark among starting forwards.
Where Marleau really earns his cash, though, is as their best pure scorer. He has compiled 64 points this season, 33 of them from lighting the lamp and is on pace for three more goals and six more points in the remaining seven games of the season.
He also leads the Sharks with 1,573 minutes played—110 more than the next forward Joe Thornton. He plays hard every play, has an undying desire to win and is more than willing to put the team on his back and carry them to victory.
Marleau is getting on in years, but he is aging like the fine wine of nearby Napa Valley. He simply seems to be getting better with age and is playing like he could be in the league another 13 years.
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