It's The Douggernaut, Bitch!

The Douggernaut might remember September 24th for a while. He signed a fat contract extension, scored a rare goal, and beat the shit out of a Duck. Murray also rescued an orphan from a burning building and solved the nation's financial crisis by hip-checking Henry Paulson.

Murray's contract will pay him $10 million over 4 years. Considering his remarkable improvement last year and the relative salaries of D-men these days, I'd say it's a great deal for both sides. Congratulations Douggernaut, here's to many more years of solid defensive play and many more fists to the face of our Pacific Division rivals.

Salary Cap Shuffle

Previously on "As The Salary Cap Turns", San Jose edged over the cap by $226,000. Who would stay? Who would go? Is Doug Wilson really... RON WILSON'S LONG-LOST TWIN BROTHER?!?!?

This week on "As The Salary Cap Turns", Torrey Mitchell breaks his leg. How will this effect the residents of HP Pavilion?

As it turns out, the cap situation is even more screwed up now. Mike from Hockey Analysis, does his usual fantastic job of deciphering the CBA. Fun little clause he finds - San Jose could have IR'd him for cap relief if they were already compliant. But because they're currently over the cap, San Jose can't IR Mitchell for cap relief. Makes sense - that clause presumably keeps teams from abusing the IR list to shuffle around the cap. But now that little quarter million has really put Wilson into a corner - not only does he have to get the team back under the cap, he has to find a replacement player for Mitchell in the line-up as well.

This brings us back to Kyle McLaren and his dead weight contract. Dumping Big Mac's $2.5M would get San Jose enough under the cap to sign Friesen or pay a guy like Couture or Zalewski for some time in the bigs.

Now, how to deal with that contract. My first thought was to renegotiate. McLaren has repeatedly said he would like to finish his career in San Jose. Given his decline in production and injury issues, he'd likely bite at a 1 year, $1.25M contract. Not so fast - the CBA doesn't allow for any renegotiation of contracts during the contract term. Again, the rule makes some sense. A player that plays out of his mind for one year can't hold his team hostage for a new contract.

So we're back to the trading block. My guess is we'll see a glorified salary dump trade. Remember the Vladimir Malakov trade? The Sharks used to be one of those teams willing to take on a salary dump. Now we're the ones looking for teams with cap space to spare. At least, compared to Malakov, McLaren is a serviceable hand and his contract isn't as cancerous. Maybe Big Mac and a 3rd round pick for a prospect or two?

The silver lining to this is a fun one - at least we're not the Ducks. Anaheim's contract with Mathieu Schneider is twice as big as McLaren's and the stakes are even higher. The Ducks have to dump Schneider before they can resign Teemu Selanne.

Notorious Out 2 Months

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO



God's sense of irony, however, remains intact.

Fantastic Voyage

Season tickets for the Sharks started going out to fans yesterday. On Tuesday I got an email from the team with a tracking number for my package. Sweet! I wonder where, between Santa Clara St. and my home in West San Jose, those tickets are! Winchester? San Tomas?



Winnipeg? Really? Did someone in the ticket office accidentally send it to the wrong printer 3000 miles away?

OK, maybe I can see every league ticket being generated in some office in Canada. But why the left turn at Omaha?


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Who let Ryane Clowe behind the wheel again?

Apparently the San Jose Sharks, because here's Ryane Clowe delivering season tickets. Clowe and Marcel Goc were dispatched to make surprise ticket deliveries to a few lucky fans. Sounds like a situation ripe for comedy! Except that the only thing more boring than hockey players are their fans:



I'll cut the second guy some slack. It must be hard living so close to an active supernova.