San Jose Sharks 2013-14 Season Primer

• Team Outlook from McKeen’s Hockey Guide:

  Another season’s gone. Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau are a year older and no closer to the Stanley Cup. This wasn’t your typical Sharks campaign though, even if the result was familiar. The team went through massive hot-and-cold streaks that encouraged GM Doug Wilson to be both a buyer and seller during the season.Moving forward, Thornton and Marleau will see their contributions slowly decline as they move away from their prime. That would be more devastating for the Sharks if Joe Pavelski and Logan Couture hadn’t taken significant steps forward over the last few years. As it is, the Sharks seem capable of staying competitive in 2013-14 and beyond. Beyond those four, Brent Burns is in a position to be their biggest offensive contributor as he shifts from the blueline to the right wing.

  Burns move is great news for the Sharks younger defenseman, including Jason Demers, Justin Braun, and Matt Irwin as they compete for playing time. At the same time, the Burns experiment might end if Dan Boyle suffers a significant injury or otherwise shows signs of decline at the age of 37. San Jose will be counting on Boyle to once again lead the team in minutes per game.

  If there’s one guy that they’ll be relying on more than Boyle, it’s goaltender Antti Niemi. Fortunately all indications suggest that their trust is well placed. There are only a few workhorse goaltenders in the league that have strung together years of largely uninterrupted success and Niemi’s one of them.

  The Sharks might not be the regular season powerhouse they were a few years ago, but they look good enough to make the playoffs for the 10th straight season.

• Team Fantasy Outlook from Dobber Hockey’s 2013-14 Fantasy Guide – Over a 150 pages of fantasy goodness:

  Dobber’s lowdown on: Brent Burns – Because the Sharks made it abundantly clear that Burns is on the wing, pretty much all fantasy tracking sites have made him a full-time winger (that I’m aware of), completely ignoring his ‘D’ eligibility. That takes him from a Top5 defenseman to own, down to just another winger. He had 20 points in his last 24 games last season since the move, so there is some upside. But he wasn’t beating up on opponents the way that he used to, since his job was no longer to stop them but rather to ‘be stopped’. He led the Sharks in the advanced stat known as ‘Corsi’, meaning that a lot more scoring opportunities happened for the Sharks than against the Sharks, whenever he was on the ice.

  There was a lot of buzz in the hockey world early on thanks in part to San Jose’s early undefeated start, but more so because of Marleau’s incredible numbers. In six games he had nine goals and 14 points, including four consecutive two goal games. Polls went up on sites across the Internet asking readers who would win the Rocket Richard Trophy – and Marleau was one of the options! He ended up with another eight goals in the next 42 games. Needless to say, he didn’t win the Rocket. In fact, his 17 points in those last 42 games were so abysmal that he actually carries a risk now. The projection in the above chart that is given, is done so without as much confidence as projections are normally given.

  Irwin had 10 points in 25 games before being nearly shut out in the playoffs (one point, 11 games). Six of his 12 points last year came on the power play. Unless the Sharks add another defenseman – and they don’t seem inclined to – Irwin could be a nice sleeper.

  Thornton got more than half of his points on the power play – 21, as opposed to 19 at even strength. Next highest was Marleau (14 PP, 16 ES), Boyle (13 PP, 6 ES) and then Couture (12 PP, 24 ES). Couture and Pavelski are threats even in five-on-five situations, whereas Big Joe, Marleau and Boyle are relying heavily on the man advantage.

Follow link for more info and stats

Additions: D Kyle Bigos, D Adam Comrie, D Rob Davison, F Petter Emanuelsson, G Troy Grosenick, F Eriah Hayes, F Tyler Kennedy, F Rylan Schwartz, F Daniil Tarasov.

Subtractions: F T.J. Galiardi, F Scott Gomez, F Tommy Grant, G Thomas Greiss, D Danny Groulx, G Thomas Heemskerk, F Tim Kennedy, F Jon Matsumoto, D Lee Moffie.

Promotion candidates: C Tomas Hertl, G Alex Stalock, D Matt Tennyson, C Travis Oleksuk

Player salaries: $63,756,666 (22)
Cap Number: $65,131,667
Bonuses: $425,000
Cap Space: -$406,667
Forwards: $41,440,000 (13)
Defensemen: $19,266,667 (7)
Goalies: $4,425,000 (2)
Source: CapGeek

Forwards
Patrick Marleau – Logan Couture – Tommy Wingels
Tomas Hertl – Joe Thornton – Brent Burns
Raffi Torres – Joe Pavelski – Tyler Kennedy
James Sheppard – Andrew Desjardins – Adam Burish
Bracken Kearns

Defensemen
Matt Irwin – Dan Boyle
Marc-Edouard Vlasic – Justin Braun
Scott Hannan – Brad Stuart
Jason Demers

Goalies
Antti Niemi
Alex Stalock

2013 San Jose Sharks Draft Results 

San Jose Sharks Top Prospects

2012-13 San Jose Sharks Player Stats

Some info, stats and video taken from NHL.com’s 30-in-30 series.