Dell may be asset for Sharks to dangle
Analysis: Backup goalie could be dealt to obtain scoring punch
EDMONTON, ALBERTA >> Doug Wilson made clear last week that the Sharks won’t be trading any of their core prospects in search of more scoring at forward this winter.
In short, Timo Meier, Kevin Labanc, Danny O’Regan, Tim Heed and Joakim Ryan won’t be leaving town unless they’re part of a package that brings in another highquality youngster who “works for now and in the future.”
But Wilson, the Sharks’ general manager, can still make a deal by giving up a high-value piece named Aaron Dell, who’s destined to leave the team via unrestricted free agency this summer.
If the first half of the 201718 NHL season is teaching us anything, it’s that goaltending depth is more valuable than ever. Just ask the Montreal Canadiens, Pittsburgh Penguins and Vegas Golden Knights, who have all scrambled to find goaltending help this season.
With that in mind, Dell will be a highly sought commodity if the Sharks allow him to hit the open market this summer. Every offseason, the top backup goalies in the league get eaten up by clubs desperate for an answer in the blue paint.
In 2015, it was Martin Jones and Cam Talbot. A year later, it was Brian Elliott and James Reimer. Last summer, former Chicago Blackhawks netminder Scott Darling was the hot name.
Every team that’s a little thin in the crease is already eyeing Dell, who has a 1.91 goals-against average and a .934 save percentage in 32 career appearances.
The Sharks would obviously prefer to keep Dell. It’s a luxury to have a backup goalie who
can fill in for Jones without skipping a beat. But with $5.75 million a year tied up in Jones through 2023-24 starting next season, the Sharks don’t have enough money in their budget to spend on goaltending to meet Dell’s price tag.
This leads us to Wilson’s dilemma: Keep Dell and allow him to walk in the summer without compensation or trade him before the deadline and risk having his team’s season derailed by an injury to Jones?
Here’s my two cents: We know that the Sharks will need to add to their roster to be a true contender this season. Every successful business venture requires a significant amount of risk. It’s hard to win at the table when your chips are buried in your pocket.
• A popular topic of discussion this season is whether the modern NHL player can stomach public criticism from his coach.
Edmonton Oilers coach — and former Sharks coach — Todd McLellan has faced heat from the Canadian media for comments he has made that have been perceived as public blasts of superstars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
The belief here is that today’s generation of players are too coddled, too sensitive to read about themselves in a negative
light, and thus, a coach risks losing his room by calling out his guys by name in the media.
If all of this is true, the Sharks’ dressing room is the exception.
Sharks coach Pete DeBoer isn’t shy about making honest assessments of his young players in the press and it appears to be working.
He called out Joonas Donskoi and Chris Tierney after the Sharks were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring and both players have said that they went into the offseason more motivated than ever.
• Nitpicking lineup decisions can be the lowest of low-hanging fruits.
It might be the biggest
form of delusional thinking that fans can get sucked into. A team is only as good as the players in the room. Minor line tweaks can’t generate talent.
With that being said, DeBoer’s usage of O’Regan, who was reassigned to the AHL Barracuda on Tuesday, is perplexing.
O’Regan, who was a point per game player in college and the AHL, has spent the majority of his minutes playing on the Sharks’ fourth line with the likes of Joel Ward, Jannik Hansen and Ryan Carpenter.
Nevertheless, he has managed to record four points in nine games, flashing his playmaking skill.
Regardless, this isn’t a role that accentuates O’Regan’s skillset. It would be interesting to see what the rookie center could do if he got a chance to play with other high-end skilled players with hockey sense, such as Couture, Joe Thornton and Donskoi.
Instead, the Sharks are giving those opportunities to Labanc, who has gone 23 games without scoring a goal.
O’Regan certainly needs to get stronger on the puck at the NHL level, but the Sharks aren’t making the best use of his talent by keeping him locked in a fourth-line role.
• Sharks Sports & Entertainment has parted ways with chief sales and marketing officer Flavil Hampsten. Hampsten, 37, was hired by the Sharks as an executive vice president two years ago after they missed the 2015 playoffs.
The Sharks average paid attendance rose from 16,746 in 2015-16 to 17,508 last year. Attendance at the 17,562-seat arena has dipped this season, though, as the Sharks have announced sellouts for just seven of 17 home games and have an average attendance of 17,279, or 98.4 percent of capacity.
In a statement to this newspaper, Hampsten wrote that his employment with the Sharks was always meant to be short term and that he and Sharks COO John Tortora “have been in discussion about the future for some time now and decided this week that it was time to part ways.”