Sharks Hockey Analysis

Draft Day 2: A Few Good (defense)Men

Doug Wilson made a trade! He traded a 6th rounder in 2010 for an additional 7th rounder in 2009 - what a crazy deal.

Hard to know what the Sharks got exactly yesterday, but I’ll do my best to give you some info. The best prospect on the surface is their first 2nd round pick, William Wrenn, a stay-at-home d-man who was the Captain of the USA U-18 Gold Medal effort this past year. He has decent size and is going the college route by enrolling at the University of Denver next season. He will likely play two years and DW will see where he is - he sounds like Vlasic with more size and leadership qualities.

The other pick that really jumped off the page was the 5th round selection Phil Varone, who this blogger makes a pretty convincing case to be an impact player on the NHL level. Sounds like the kid can compete, plays with a non-stop motor - is Doug Wilson searching for his Maxim Talbot here? His is a playoff beast at the age of 18, with 19 points in his junior playoff run this year in only 14 games. I love this pick - this kid seems like a winner.

The other picks include another big OHL defensemen (this kid is 6′6 and growing) named Taylor Doherty, a Slovakian World Junior team member in Marek Viedensky who plays in the WHL junior league and an U-18 German national team member, Dominik Bielke. Obviously, Doherty is the most interesting based on his sheer size - but he looks like a giant Douglas Murray to me in the clip I’ve seen, and not Zdeno Chara - but he’s still young.

Not exactly the big splash we might have been expecting from DW this weekend, but we have to remember that the major remodeling didn’t start to happen on the Sharks until early July last season. Changes are coming. Doug Wilson made that clear to Mark Purdy in the Mercury News this morning. He even went so far as to say that there will be seven to eight new players on the roster. Now, this could be a combination of trades, UFA’s and players who didn’t get a crack at a regular roster spot last season (Staubitz, McGinn) - but changes are a comin’ friends - we all know Doug Wilson doesn’t act out of panic. If we’re acting on hunches here, the picks of Wrenn and Doherty could mean that DW is considering moving one or two of his young defensemen in order to get an impact #2 man that we’ve discussed at length on the blog and podcast.

We’ll have to hold our breath under the chips fall on Wednesday - UFA Day.