There are some myths about the Sharks I constantly hear that annoy me. Some, like Patrick Marleau being gutless, are just blatant trolling. Others seem to have some bits of truth: like opposing rookies getting their first goal against the Sharks.

But there’s one that lives somewhere in the middle: When Doug Wilson gets rid of a player, that players goes on to be ridiculously good. Okay, we get it, Jamie McGinn had a good first week in Denver. But how much truth is actually behind that myth?

Doug Wilson was hired in 2003, so I went through and looked at the stats (including playoff games) of every former Shark that played at least one game from the end of 2002-2003 season until now. Here are 30 of the more notable names (sorted by the change in their scoring rate after leaving):

Player Name	GP w/ SJ	Pts w/ SJ	Avg. Pts per 82 GP w/ SJ	GP after leaving	Pts afer leaving	Avg. Pts per 82 GP after leaving	Change to Avg. Pts per 82 GP
Brad Boyes	1	0	0.0	611	407	54.6	+54.6
Jamie McGinn	226	50	18.1	59	32	44.5	+26.4
Marcel Goc	302	62	16.8	230	103	36.7	+19.9
Daniel Winnik	26	6	18.9	43	19	36.2	+17.3
Douglas Murray	508	69	11.1	9	3	27.3	+16.2
Teemu Selanne	194	141	56.6	654	559	70.1	+13.5
Christian Ehrhoff	379	147	31.8	303	165	44.6	+12.8
Kyle Wellwood	53	20	30.9	113	60	43.5	+12.6
Bill Guerin	25	11	36.1	282	161	46.8	+10.7
Matt Carle	184	72	32.1	415	185	36.6	+4.5
Marco Sturm	591	288	40.0	415	221	43.7	+3.7
Travis Moen	25	5	16.4	276	61	18.1	+1.7
Michal Handzus	97	26	22.0	7	2	23.4	+1.4
Mike Rathje	742	178	19.7	103	25	19.9	+0.2
Devin Setoguchi	315	183	47.6	111	61	45.1	-2.5
Milan Michalek	356	230	53.0	234	141	49.4	-3.6
Torrey Mitchell	335	84	20.6	39	7	14.7	-5.9
Ryane Clowe	491	316	52.8	7	4	46.9	-5.9
Brad Stuart	423	164	31.8	576	178	25.3	-6.5
Scott Hannan	566	140	20.3	453	73	13.2	-7.1
Ian White	40	19	39.0	107	37	28.4	-10.6
Wayne Primeau	117	42	29.4	267	60	18.4	-11.0
Steve Bernier	182	88	39.6	345	114	27.1	-12.5
Jed Ortmeyer	80	20	20.5	39	2	4.2	-16.3
Scott Thornton	383	162	34.7	105	21	16.4	-18.3
Brian Campbell	33	26	64.6	389	217	45.7	-18.9
Craig Rivet	115	54	38.5	185	44	19.5	-19.0
Dany Heatley	194	168	71.0	118	74	51.4	-19.6
Mike Ricci	588	296	41.3	156	26	13.7	-27.6
Jonathan Cheechoo	498	326	53.7	62	14	18.5	-35.2
Grand Total (All 69 players)	11,942	4,381	30.1	10,059	3,740	30.4	+0.3

There’s quite a bit of fun with small sample size in there, and obviously player roles change from one place to another, but there are still some very interesting pieces of data. I think the most interesting thing to note is how close to zero the overall total is after leaving. After leaving San Jose, a player averages only 1/3 of a point more over an 82-game season.

While it is technically in increase, it is so insignificantly small, I think we have to call this myth busted. Players seem to play about the same whether Doug Wilson trades them away or not.

Well, maybe unless he lets them go to the Wild. Heatley, Setoguchi and Mitchell are all under-performing compared to what they did in San Jose.

	@
24-16-3, 51 points		23-13-7, 53 points
6th in Western Conference		5th in Western Conference

7:30 PM PDT | HP Pavillion | San Jose, California.
TV: CSNCA-HD, NHL Network | Radio: 98.5 KFOX, SJSharks.com
Know Your Enemy: Hockey Wilderness, Hashtag Hockey

This is the rubber match of the season series. The Sharks defeated the Wild 4-2 back on April 3rd, in a game that ended with quite a bit of roughness. San Jose is 3-2-1 since that game while Minnesota is 3-3-1. The Wild were shutout 3 times in that span, but may have righted the ship with 9 goals in their last two games. Although they were facing the Alberta teams…

Projected Sharks Lineup

Patrick Marleau – Logan Couture – Martin Havlat

T.J. Galiardi – Joe Thornton – Brent Burns

Raffi Torres – Joe Pavelski – Tommy Wingels

Andrew Desjardins – Scott Gomez – Adam Burish

Matt Irwin – Dan Boyle

Marc-Edouard Vlasic – Justin Braun

Jason Demers – Brad Stuart

Antti Niemi

Thomas Greiss

Projected Wild Lineup

Zach Parise – Mikko Koivu – Charlie Coyle

Jason Pominville – Kyle Brodziak – Pierre-Marc Bouchard

Jason Zucker – Matt Cullen – Devin Setoguchi

Cal Clutterbuck – Torrey Mitchell – Mikael Granlund

Ryan Suter – Jonas Brodin

Clayton Stoner – Tom Gilbert

Brett Clark – Jared Spurgeon

Niklas Backstrom

Darcy Kuemper

According to Kevin Kurz, Irwin’s back in the spot Scott Hannan took in the last game. It’s good to see Irwin back. And it proves Hannan was only playing so he could get some level of comfort in the system during a real game – just in case injuries forced him into a playoff game. It didn’t bother me as long as it didn’t keep happening.

The Wild are without Dany Heatley for the rest of the season. He recently had successful shoulder surgery after injuring it in a lightsaber duel with Marc-Edouard Vlasic.

(Thanks again to mymclife for the gif.)

Prediction: Sharks win 3-2. Goals by Marleau, Burns, and Torres. Meanwhile, Darth Clutterbuck tries to avenge his fallen comrade by hitting Vlasic about 15 times over the course of the game.