Doug Wilson a shark in NHL trade waters
San Jose GM has assembled a blue line that’s rare in cap era
It seemed like the days of being able to assemble a Big Three on defence were all but gone.
Ray Bourque, Adam Foote and Rob Blake in Colorado. Scott Stevens, Scott Niedermayer and Brian Rafalski in New Jersey. Nicklas Lidstrom, Larry Murphy and Chris Chelios in Detroit.
The salary cap, instituted in 2005, just made it too difficult, it seemed, plus having 31 teams aggressively in the hunt for good defencemen meant there was competition every time a good one came on the market.
San Jose, however, seems to have cracked the post-cap code in this regard, and this season will ice the trio of Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, the best threesome in the NHL going into the 2018-2019 season. Nashville might differ, with P.K. Subban, Roman Josi and Mattias Ekholm, but most would give the Sharks a slight edge with the acquisition of Karlsson and his splendid skill set this week.
The fact Karlsson and Burns were acquired by trade speaks to the resourcefulness of Sharks general manager Doug Wilson and his creativeness when it comes to horse-trading with his fellow GMs. Heck, he didn’t even know Burns was a forward or a defenceman when he got him from Minnesota in 2011 for Devon Setoguchi and Charlie Coyle, and most would agree that has turned out very much in San Jose’s favour.
Wilson, now in his 15th year running the Sharks, was never really viewed as overly cautious among his peers, but he was certainly committed to a consistent draft-and-develop strategy and understandably conscious of the revenue and payroll restrictions of San Jose, which plays in one of the NHL’s smallest rinks.
In the past three years, however, Wilson has become increasingly bold, almost at the same time Nashville counterpart David Poile has become similarly aggressive when it comes to trades. In a theme that was to reappear, Wilson figured out a slightly diabolical way to get goalie Martin Jones out of divisional rival Los Angeles, involving Boston as a brief stopping point before bringing in the netminder to solidify the Sharks in the crease. Jones, in his first season, took San Jose all the way to the Stanley Cup final before losing to Pittsburgh.
Last winter, Wilson went after a player, Evander Kane, who had worn out his welcome in both Winnipeg and Buffalo, and also a player other GMs wouldn’t touch for reasons of salary, production and baggage. After paying a firstround pick, a conditional fourth and a prospect for Kane, the Sharks were delighted to see Kane score nine times in 17 regular-season games, then another four times in nine playoff games.
The second-round loss to Vegas was massively disappointing, but the Sharks liked what Kane had shown them enough to give him $49 million over seven years. That setback to the Golden Knights, meanwhile, only served to make Wilson more aggressive.
Aware, as was all of the hockey world, of the ugliness in Ottawa between Mike Hoffman and Karlsson, Wilson got Senators GM Pierre Dorion to trade Hoffman to him, unloading the salary of Mikkel Boedker in the process. Then, in a similar way to the Jones swaps three years ago, Wilson surprised everyone by flipping Hoffman to Florida, putting him right back in the same division as Ottawa and making Dorion look a little foolish for not putting a rider on the deal.
The Karlsson trade, finally, was the icing on the cake, giving San Jose those three big talents on the back end while not giving up anything of particular impact in return. With Burns now 33, Joe Pavelski 34 and Joe Thornton creaking along at 39, Wilson clearly made the assessment that this was the time to strike if the Sharks were going to win a Cup with this core group.
Since that appearance in the 2016 final, the Sharks have turned over half their roster, and have a nice mix of players they drafted — Vlasic, Logan Couture, Tomas Hertl — and players acquired via trade. All those years of piling up assets in the draft and signing useful, inexpensive free agents like forward Barclay Goodrow gave Wilson lots of bodies and picks to bargain with, allowing him to move six pieces to get Karlsson.
We can debate whether San Jose is now the favourite to win the Cup. People in Nashville, Las Vegas, Winnipeg, Washington, Pittsburgh and, yes, Toronto feel their teams are right there. But trading for Karlsson at least matched the Leafs’ signing of John Tavares as the biggest moves of the NHL off-season, and gave San Jose a major new weapon in their bid to reach the final.
It’s hard to estimate who will benefit more; Karlsson, for having a more talented and experienced group around him, or San Jose’s forwards, none of whom managed 70 points last season. The Sharks’ power-play unit was middle of the pack in both the regular season and playoffs last year, and it’s hard to imagine the former Ottawa captain won’t make it better.
You could also argue the Leafs, with Karlsson and former Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty leaving the Eastern Conference entirely, benefit even more.
So this is where we are to start the 2018-19 season, assuming Edmonton doesn’t decide it can’t sign Darnell Nurse and feels compelled to move him (unlikely), or Toronto does the same with William Nylander (equally unlikely). It took until mid September for the final critical questions of the NHL off-season to be answered. The Leafs made their splash early with Tavares, while Wilson’s patience paid off late with the Karlsson deal.
Now let’s get through the meaninglessness of training camp and get this thing started.