What I, and I hope everyone else, hope to see next season

1) Tommy Greiss getting 30+ starts next year.

Barring a financial miracle, I'm assuming that Nabakov will not be rejoining us next season; and while that will be a sad day, I think that once he is officially gone we will regret making him a 70+ game workhorse season after season.  Not because he didn't perform well (because he did), but because Greiss has very little starting experience.  I'm not saying that he cannot be a starter next year, I'm saying that we simply just do not know.  He has shown signs that he can be a #1 goaltender in the NHL, but also several negative signs that can be attributed to lack of in game experience as he is often out of position and has judgement issues at times.  I think that even if we can grab a goalie who can be immediately thrown into the mix, this kid deserves major starts next year.  In a perfect world I would like to see Carey Price and Greiss splitting the starts about 65%/35%.  This year will either be a development year or a breakout year for Greiss, btu giving him the starts is the only way to find out

2) Marleau back in teal, but having the HTML line split up

As wet as the concept of the HTML line makes my pants, I have become less and less of a fan of the "put all your eggs in one basket" philosophy as last season went on.  Whenever we play a team with a shutdown line, our top three players are rendered useless in the HTML line.  I think moving Marleau to the second line would add more of a scoring balance to our team.  It leaves Thornton with a 40 goal scorer to set up, and gives Pavelski a 40 goal scorer to make plays with.

3) Seeing more development of young blood

Kind of going along with #1 on this list.  I think giving Couture, McGinn and co. a full season on the line and fewer round trips on the Worcester shuttle will really pay dividends.  Of the NHL powerhouses, our team is considered one of the oldest; therefore I feel like having our third, fourth, and even second lines filled with some of our younger talent will really pay dividends.  I think having a lineup like this could really benefit our team:

Heatley-Thornton-Clowe/Setoguchi(depends if clowe gets traded)

Marleau-Pavelski-Setoguchi/Couture

Mitchell-Malhotra-Couture/McGinn

Ortmeyer-Nichol-McGinn/McLaren

Boyle-Martin/Hamhuis

Murray-Vlasic

Who knows what the third defensive pairing could look like. I personally indifferent about Huskins and Wallin

Price

Greiss

4) Having most of our salary cap surplus being spent on revamping defense (implicit in #3)

As you can see, I really hope that our offense doesn't change very much.  I hope to see at least two new defenders in teal next season.  From other FTF articles, it seems that the frontrunners in the favorites are Paul Martin and Dan Hamhuis.  While we probably can't sign both, i think that if we got one and then a third pair defenseman we would be set.

It's going be an interesting offseason, but knowing DW it will probably be another month at least before any major move is made.

Go Sharks