You’re definitely right- I’m very excited at the prospect of Heatley absolutely tearing it up with Thornton. But if I’m a betting man, I stick with the majority of the roster and plan for the future. This is another “buy” deal in the history of DW- he’s had his fair share of those since the lockout.

Precisely, but the problem with holding onto Marleau if/when Heatley comes over is that you have no one in the system to rebuild.

You’re right when you say “take the next decade off to rebuild.” That imagery is just brutal. Kudos!

I’m off to golf so I can’t get into all the details, but all that 4 million bonus entails is that San Jose will not pay him $4 M.

His cap hit will be $7.5 M for the duration of his time spent in San Jose.

I’m with you … but … if we don’t give up too much and he helps us win the Cup … then I reserve the right to love Heatley … :)

uh … is she sucking on something?

I could, but we are in the same trouble as before. We will have a second line payed winger, dropped to the third line. And, since he is getting paid more than Cheechoo, it probably will not work. But, on the same token, he could still put up good numbers on the third line, unlike Cheech.

If the D was Blake, Boyle, Vlasic, Huskins, Lukowich, Murray and Nabby in goal with Greiss as the back up, the Sharks would be over the cap by 3 mil. Thats over the cap without any reserve players.

Everyone wants role players over Heatley? Would you turn down Alexander the great cuz his contract is high? Now mind you Heatley isent on OV’s level, but he’s just a notch down. Plus Joe and Patty are way better then Spezza and Alfie.

Remember the season is long. If this team needs something in bad way. I’m sure they will get it before the playoffs start. Who knows…Nabby could be in on the trade…you never know. So If we get Heatley and Halak or Price back that’s pretty good…also shredding cap. The one good thing this team has done over the years is manage to pull of some great trades.

Pavelski is cheap, consistently getting better, and has a loyalty to the organization. He’s one of the guys that always goes out on the ice and plays his heart out, whether the team is dominating 7-1, protecting a 2-1 lead late in the third, or trailing. Yeah, he’s not going to post 50 goal seasons, but he will be good for around 60 points every year, maybe even more – nobody knows what the ceiling is with him. He’s miles ahead of Heatley defensively already, and only has 2 1/2 years in the NHL under his belt.

I know that Heatley is a better player, but in a cap world, you need cheap players to compliment the big contract guys. The Sharks already have four big contracts in Thornton, Marleau, Boyle, and Nabokov – what they need are more cheap players, not $7.5M for five year players.

The CBA does not allow players to renegotiate contracts. Believe me, I’d love it if players could do so, because then situations like Kyle McLaren’s won’t happen, but I can see too many GMs try and take advantage of it.

Fortunately, Marleau is a UFA next year and probably will take a large paycut then.

Unbelievable chemistry didn’t really get us all that far in the playoffs… just saying.

makes dynasties a lot less likely these days. Given our rosters the last few years, we’ve definitely had what it takes to win everything, but we’ve won nothing. We had a shot for a dynasty starting the year before the lockout and perhaps peaking next year, but we blew it each year.

I feel the same way, I would love to see us get two or three in a row, but I don’t think it’s realistic for our organization at this point. I would take one year of success before the inevitable rebuilding than another 5 seasons of great regular seasons and short playoffs followed by rebuilding.

bringing in Heatley just moves the rebuilding phase up a year.

I think the funny thing about all this is that it’s rampant speculation. Nowhere (as far as I know, and as far as the “Cone of GM Silence” has been working) has DW or anyone from the Sharks come out and said we’re still chasing Heatley, or there’s a deal imminent. I mean, for all we know, DW could have stopped courting him after the initial offer of Cheech and Ehrhoff was rejected. We have the rumors of some bloggers to tell us that we’re heavily pursuing Heatley, and it seems everyone has picked that up and run with it. You know what would not really surprise me? If this time next week Heatley was still on the Senators, and the Sharks had really been negotiating with some other team to move Cheech, Ehrhoff, Lukowich and/or Milan.

I think they just meant that was for Neil. I mean, a TOP SIX for a bottom six with scoring potential, is pushing it. Not sure if it is the same in the Heatley situation.

I’m pretty sure the news reports and PD are separate departments. Wyshynski doesn’t write the rumors for Yahoo’s main NHL page, unless Yahoo went through some major budget cuts recently.