Up in Penticton at the Young Stars tournament I had an opportunity to sit down with Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson to discuss the game of hockey and the upcoming 2011-2012 season. Spread out over two days, the interview covered a myriad of topics including management philosophy, scouting, trades, player evaluation, statistics, and contract negotiations. For an archive of parts 1 and 2, please click here. Today's material covers the NHL rulebook, contract negotiations, free agency, player development, and drafting.

Special thanks to Doug Wilson, Scott Emmert, Tom Holy, and Ryan Stenn for the opportunity. Enjoy.

Last season when Joe Thornton was suspended, the organization was strong in their assertion that a two game suspension for that type of hit was not appropriate. Following that, have you been pleased with the discussions surrounding Rule 48, whether it be at GM meetings or otherwise?

You have the opportunity to air your thoughts, and as long as you have that forum, yes we do. We think our League is very proactive in trying to make this a good, safe environment for our players while continuing to keep what makes our game unique. The Thornton situation, we spoke at that time because it was—we felt the way we did because of the uniqueness of what occurred. We felt it was similar to another hit that took place between Willie Mitchell and Jonathan Toews.

We support the new rule, we support what we’re trying to accomplish in this League in order to make it a safe environment, but within that, there are situations that we took a position on. We felt that way, we spoke our mind, we supported our player, and once that decision is made, you have to move forward. Unfortunately their player was injured and is still injured today. We don’t like to see that happen.

Is there any rule in the NHL that you would like to add or change?

When we did this rules package [coming out of the lockout], you have to understand the impact of all the different rules and how they are connected. So when we wrote up the rules package it wasn’t just "one rule, one rule", it was how many of them would take place. The game has sped up. You eliminated the hooking and the holding and some things that took place. I was not a big supporter of the trapezoid—

Especially as a former defenseman.

Well even for anybody. I would like to see that removed. I think there’s been some injuries that have happened just outside of the trapezoid, where there is a hesitation. When you removed the holding [high in the zone] coupled with the ability to dump the puck in and keep the goalie in the net—in the past, if you didn’t dump the puck in properly and the goalie was able to play it, well, that was your fault. So penalizing the goaltenders to play the puck, when the puck lies just outside the trapezoid, the defenseman kind of hesitates and the goalie just kind of hesitates—we’ve seen some collisions take place there.

With the rule where if there’s any contact on an icing call, in that situation, a penalty can be called, a major penalty can be called, players have been suspended-- we’re always trying to stay ahead of the curve. But you have to be open to see how something truly plays out and we don’t often have enough GM meetings or times to revisit it quickly, along with the time to see how something truly plays out. I do think our group has always been able to have the discussion and say, "We are going to want to revisit this because here is what happened."

Would you be in support of more GM meetings throughout the year? Do you think that is feasible within the schedule?

I like the fact that our GM meetings are after the Deadline now, so your focus can be on the game and you’re not looking at 29 other guys and saying, "Where’s a deal that we can make here" [laughs]. So I like that, I like the fact that people can speak their minds in there, particularly newer GM’s that have played recently, several of them under these new rules. I think last year was a very open and healthy conversation where new ideas and new thoughts spurred discussion.

Continue reading this post »

Up in Penticton at the Young Stars tournament I had an opportunity to sit down with Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson to discuss the game of hockey and the upcoming 2011-2012 season. Spread out over two days, the interview covered a myriad of topics including management philosophy, scouting, trades, player evaluation, statistics, and contract negotiations. Divided into three parts, the interviews with Doug Wilson will run on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week on Fear The Fin. For part one, please click here. Today's material covers advanced statistics and positions of importance on NHL teams.

Special thanks to Doug Wilson, Scott Emmert, Tom Holy, and Ryan Stenn for the opportunity. Enjoy.

You spoke about how centers and defenseman are commodities that everyone in the NHL is looking to acquire. What do you think is more important from a general philosophy, a number one center or a number one defenseman?

It depends on what you already have within your organization--

If you’re building from square one.

From square one? Supply and demand will tell you there are very few defenseman, and maybe I’m biased because I’m an old defenseman [laughs], but the amount of ice time, how they can impact a game, that is key. Supply and demand just illustrates to you that they’re not out there. A lot of the best ones are getting older or retired, Rob Blake who we had a few years ago, Scott Niedermayer, Nicklas Lidstrom—

Chris Pronger.

You’re always searching for those. It’s a very difficult position to play. And that’s why with Brent, at 26 years old and 17 goals and his ability to play in different situations, that’s why he was so attractive. Those are the things right now that I think every team is looking for.

How much value do you place on even strength scoring, on an individual and team-wide level?

I think it’s very important, whether it be 5 on 5, or cases where it’s 4 on 4 or even 3 on 3. That really is an indicator of the people you’re lining up against within those situations. If you have to rely on your power play, hot goaltending, or penalty killing, at some point that is going to come back to haunt you.

Do you think maybe that is, the power play for example, where that can be a game situation that fluctuates widely over a ten game period, or even a seven game series.

Yes, because ultimately you’re trying to win against the best teams, and within those teams, the discipline they usually have at special teams is very good. You’re trying to be better in every significant category, and 5 on 5 strength is where the majority of the game is played at.

Last year Joe Pavelski really struggled at the beginning of the year, but if you looked at his underlying numbers, he was playing well. His CORSI numbers, he was putting the pucks to the net and either second or third on the team in shots. He and his linemates were doing a lot of things right but the boxscore numbers weren’t there. Really it was a case of shooting percentage. Is that something you look at in a player, where you feel that all of that is going to balance out over an extended period of time, or does it get to the point where a player just has to eventually put the puck in the net?

As long as the player is continuing to get the shots and they’re quality shots, because there is a difference between a shot on net and a scoring opportunity, and the player is continuing to get those opportunities, you can see a player who for him things just aren’t going in. But if they continue to shoot and stay with what has historically been their performance and their game, usually it comes back to a longer period of time where they will get back to that level.

Continue reading this post »

Up in Penticton at the Young Stars tournament I had an opportunity to sit down with Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson to discuss the game of hockey and the upcoming 2011-2012 season. Spread out over two days, the interview covered a myriad of topics including management philosophy, scouting, trades, player evaluation, statistics, and contract negotiations. Divided into three parts, the interviews with Doug Wilson will run on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week on Fear The Fin. Today's material covers the Sharks offseason and how the organization prepares itself when pursuing trades.

Special thanks to Doug Wilson, Scott Emmert, Tom Holy, and Ryan Stenn for the opportunity. Enjoy.

Run us through this offseason that you’ve had and how you went about building the team. You had a very active offseason.

We first go back and revisit every year for analysis. There were a lot of good things. The last couple of years have been very good years for us, going to the final four obviously. But we’re not satisfied with that. We explored the areas we wanted to address to make our hockey team better. We think every team is looking for a top four defenseman, a puck mover with size. Brent Burns is one of the players we’ve identified two years ago. And when that came together--

Was that interest based off a specific situation you saw Burns in?

Not necessarily. You take a look at this business and there aren’t enough good players to go around at specific positions, whether it be defenseman or center. Adding a guy like that who is in the age group and our familiarity with him—Todd coached him when he first turned pro—seeing how he plays the game, how he would fit with our group, adding that type of piece is something we’ve been looking at doing for awhile. They rarely become available, and when they do, you jump to do it. He’s a guy that can help us in all areas, not only the offensive side but in defending, his size, how he competes. Not even focusing on a specific player like Burns, but that defensive position was a general priority we wanted to address.

The other priority we wanted to address was our penalty killing. Taking a look at it, we were 24th in the League. That’s unacceptable. The penalty kill is an important part of this game.

Especially when in years past the team has consistently been one of the better units.

We’ve been very high. So you can say we explore systemically how you are playing, and you take a look at the personnel. Several of the players we added, Burns, Colin White, Michal Handzus, Marty Havlat, Jim Vandermeer, Andrew Murray, they are all very capable of being quality penalty killers. You look at our team, we have some young players who are evolving up and are going to compete in training camp, in many different areas. We look at our goaltending, we look at our defense, we look at our center position, and we feel that all these attributes put us in position to be one of the top teams to compete every year. But you always have to do an honest analysis and look at where we can help our team.

The one thing we looked at last year is in January we were 12th in the Western Conference. You take a look at the performance of our team in the first half of the year and the last 37 games of the year, and it was completely different. Not just the plus minus, but the goals for and goals against and all those categories, and there is a lot to be pleased about but we needed to get better this offseason. We’ve got some veteran guys, but we always believe in building opportunities for young players.

The third and fourth line specifically is where the bulk of that competition will take place.

It is, but I’ll tell you this—you look back a year ago, two young names. Logan Couture, arguably our best player in all three zones. He came in and said "I’m going to make this team." Andrew Desjardins, who has basically come from nowhere, has worked his tail off to earn equity. He played in the Vancouver series. So whoever is going to help us win games is going to play.

Of course the reality is there are some key players on our team who will play regardless and that’s the way it is, but we want internal competition to push us. You want to be patient and believe in your players but at some point you need to move. Where we were at in mid-January was unacceptable, the way we played down the stretch after that probably took its toll on us, the margin for error that we had to compete to get into the playoffs.

Continue reading this post »