GDT: Game 79: San Jose Sharks vs. Nashville Predators 5 PM PST

[Gene Parmesan]

The team is very entertaining.

 

[tahoesharksfan]

Hertl on TV postgame interview (attempted complete transcription):

Just listening to his pressers is entertaining as hell!!

 

[stator]

Last year, and early this years, some of us here were leaving Burns out to dry. Key to Burns is pairing... good pairing lets Burns exploit what he is best at.

Brown took away Hertl's Calder trophy, imo.

About Jumbo, he wasn't always this exciting to watch this season. The 1st quarter is an example, but he light the fires on a Dec 22nd game with the Kings and have not looked back.

Since this coincides with Couture's return, some here were mistaken and given credit to Couture that was due to Jumbo. Couture's offensive production is lower than it should be, but he's made up for it with good back/forechecking and grinding. Couture should be the Sharks best two-way forward, but injuries had dampened his season.

Marleau, well, he's been largely a bust this year if you measure his offensive 5v5 production, his +/- (worse on the team at -23) and his $6.6M salary. I know Marleau is a popular player due to his history here, but it shows he's in the twight light of his career. Sure, he has stood out on some backchecking with a burst of speed when needed, but he cannot sustain it or count on it as many times per game compared to when he was a spring-chicken.

You can head over to the any one of the NHL cap websits and peruse team's $6M or thereabout forwards and easily find many that you would prefer to swap.... too many is my point.

Marleau's 5v5 offensive production is not good, more than half his assists came on the PP, and until recently, the same was true for goals. He should be, and will likely be traded this offseason.

 

[Juxtaposer]

Last year, and early this years, some of us here were leaving Burns out to dry. Key to Burns is pairing... good pairing lets Burns exploit what he is best at.

Brown took away Hertl's Calder trophy, imo.

About Jumbo, he wasn't always this exciting to watch this season. The 1st quarter is an example, but he light the fires on a Dec 22nd game with the Kings and have not looked back.

Since this coincides with Couture's return, some here were mistaken and given credit to Couture that was due to Jumbo. Couture's offensive production is lower than it should be, but he's made up for it with good back/forechecking and grinding. Couture should be the Sharks best two-way forward, but injuries had dampened his season.

Marleau, well, he's been largely a bust this year if you measure his offensive 5v5 production, his +/- (worse on the team at -23) and his $6.6M salary. I know Marleau is a popular player due to his history here, but it shows he's in the twight light of his career. Sure, he has stood out on some backchecking with a burst of speed when needed, but he cannot sustain it or count on it as many times per game compared to when he was a spring-chicken.

You can head over to the any one of the NHL cap websits and peruse team's $6M or thereabout forwards and easily find many that you would prefer to swap.... too many is my point.

Marleau's 5v5 offensive production is not good, more than half his assists came on the PP, and until recently, the same was true for goals. He should be, and will likely be traded this offseason.

Would you consider Marleau a cap dump? Would you dump him just for cap space? And if you would, what would you do with the cap space?

Marleau has almost no trade value, and I think we have to accept that. I've said this several times, but this offseason he's basically Patrick Sharp from last offseason.

I don't think we should trade him (unless he truly has demanded it) because 1) Marleau > no Marleau in a vacuum, 2) he has no trade value so we would be dumping him for the sake of dumping him, and 3) we wouldn't do anything with the cap space anyway.

 

[Bleedred]

Watched on DVR.

Thank god it wasn't another loss on a Saturday in Nashville. I was starting to think that the NHL purposely does Nashville favors by allowing them to host a team on Saturday night's that they usually beat on Saturday nights in their own barn.

 

[hockeyball]

Would you consider Marleau a cap dump? Would you dump him just for cap space? And if you would, what would you do with the cap space?

Marleau has almost no trade value, and I think we have to accept that. I've said this several times, but this offseason he's basically Patrick Sharp from last offseason.

I don't think we should trade him (unless he truly has demanded it) because 1) Marleau > no Marleau in a vacuum, 2) he has no trade value so we would be dumping him for the sake of dumping him, and 3) we wouldn't do anything with the cap space anyway.

He sure is playing like someone who demanded a trade.

I think our last game this season is his last game in teal. I suspect Wilson want's rid of him at this point as badly as Marleau want's out. I think Marleau is going to have to accept a trade somewhere he doesn't necessarily want though to make it happen because no one is going to want his salary and Doug isn't going to eat any of it.

Come to think of it, unless he has a good playoff's, I could fully see him sticking around till his contract runs out because Wilson refuses to eat salary. I'm very worried, especially with Marleau being my favorite player since he entered the league, that Marleau may be an anchor in the playoffs this year and drag us down. He seems like a guy who is completely disengaged mentally, and that can be really devastating come crunch time.

 

[Bleedred]

Marleau's not terrible, he's still a decent lower end top 6 player.

But I can see that the end is coming soon for him. Last year he had hit a slight decline from the season before, now he seems to have declined in production even more this season.

 

[Gene Parmesan]

Marleau still has the physical skills to be effective. His 30 goal days are gone though. Just can't seem to find soft spots anymore.

 

[Limekiller]

Maybe he's just had a lingering shoulder or wrist injury or something that's been hampering him for a while. We've all been figuring Pavelski has been hurt for a bit, maybe the same applies to Marleau too. I certainly don't deny it could be just him getting old, but I'm going to wait to make any judgements on his performance going forward until after the season when we hear all the injuries everyone was playing through.

 

[OrrNumber4]

Maybe he's just had a lingering shoulder or wrist injury or something that's been hampering him for a while. We've all been figuring Pavelski has been hurt for a bit, maybe the same applies to Marleau too. I certainly don't deny it could be just him getting old, but I'm going to wait to make any judgements on his performance going forward until after the season when we hear all the injuries everyone was playing through.

The legs are there with Marleau; that's the first thing to go with age-related decline. His shot is just not as accurate as it used to be, he's softer on the puck, handling the puck poorly, and making bad decisions. Really seems to be more of a mental issue than anything else.

 

[Flididdle]

The legs are there with Marleau; that's the first thing to go with age-related decline. His shot is just not as accurate as it used to be, he's softer on the puck, handling the puck poorly, and making bad decisions. Really seems to be more of a mental issue than anything else.

Mostly agree, I will note his game has taken a severe hit since Nieto went down. Hopefully he just misses Nieto's speed and ability to drive play. Not that that line was scoring but they were doing a solid job of possessing play and keeping the puck out of the net. Also, Marleau is much better scorer on the wing these past years.

 

[James Reimer]

Awesome shootout by Reimer!

Too easy.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

The legs are there with Marleau; that's the first thing to go with age-related decline. His shot is just not as accurate as it used to be, he's softer on the puck, handling the puck poorly, and making bad decisions. Really seems to be more of a mental issue than anything else.

Not buying it. It's more of a teammate and usage issue than it is his own issues. None of those things that you point to is something he's gotten worse at. Some of those things he was never great at in the first place. The biggest reason is the lack of a truly skilled offensive player playing with him pretty much all year at evens.

 

[corbanSOG]

Not buying it. It's more of a teammate and usage issue than it is his own issues. None of those things that you point to is something he's gotten worse at. Some of those things he was never great at in the first place. The biggest reason is the lack of a truly skilled offensive player playing with him pretty much all year at evens.

I'll take a 40-50 pt, 2-way forward with great wheels on my team any day...at $5 mil. The issue with Marleau right now isn't whether or not he can still contribute, it's that he's being paid to be a top-tier scorer, which he just isn't anymore. When he, Thornton, and Burns are UFA's in 2017, there's no doubt that re-signing Thornton and Burns will take priority over retaining Marleau, unless he's willing to take a significant pay cut. If he really is open to waiving his NTC, I'd be willing to see what we can get for him and use his cap hit to bring in a younger, more productive scorer.

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

So he makes 1.6 million more then he should for 1 more season...

Who are we going to bring in after we trade Marleau?

He's definitely declined but even if he is only a low end 2nd liner. What are we seriously going to do with that cap space and hole in our roster? What, young, more productive scorer are we going to bring in and what assets are we going to use to acquire that player.

This isn't NHL 16 where 1st round picks are useless, but you can trade 2 of them and get JvR. The team is going through a bit of a transition phase and needs to have as much young talent as they can have for when Thornton eventually retires. What are they going to trade to get an LW to replace Marleau? A player of Marleau's current level of play, if they are 25 or under (which any long term addition to this current team should be) is going to cost a 1st round pick. Long term, the team has Hertl, Goldobin, Meier as LWs. Hertl may play center. Goldobin may play his off wing. But the team definitely doesn't need more left wingers right now. All future assets should put towards trying to acquire a long term #1C or #1D for the future.

You trade your first in 2017 for a 31 year old LW who is only slightly better than Marleau, you're in trouble at the 2017 draft when some team has a #1D up for trade and you can't get it done because you don't have enough valuable prospects. The team doesn't need to trade anybody or trade for anybody next year. Maybe explore options for Ward, Martin, and Dillon but anything else would be counter productive IMO.

 

[Jwec]

Marleau has declined a bit but is still important player for our team. I think that his trade value is quite low so if we are going to trade him we wouldn't get as big return as we would want.

Best scenario would be that we wouldn't trade Marleau and he would resign with quite big paycut but if he has asked a trade and wants out then I think we should trade him and try to replace his production either with our prospects (which I wouldn't want to count on) or UFA winger like Eriksson. Actually if trading Marleau would open space to get Loui Eriksson then I would trade Marleau. But I think that getting Eriksson is unlikely so we should keep Marleau if it is possible.

 

[Juxtaposer]

The legs are there with Marleau; that's the first thing to go with age-related decline. His shot is just not as accurate as it used to be, he's softer on the puck, handling the puck poorly, and making bad decisions. Really seems to be more of a mental issue than anything else.

I would generally agree with this statement, although deployment-wise he isn't being set up to succeed either.



If we could move Marleau for a 7th and use that cap space to sign Loui Eriksson or Andrew Ladd, great. But since I highly doubt that would happen, it would be dumb to move him for nothing, which is all anyone would give up.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

I'll take a 40-50 pt, 2-way forward with great wheels on my team any day...at $5 mil. The issue with Marleau right now isn't whether or not he can still contribute, it's that he's being paid to be a top-tier scorer, which he just isn't anymore. When he, Thornton, and Burns are UFA's in 2017, there's no doubt that re-signing Thornton and Burns will take priority over retaining Marleau, unless he's willing to take a significant pay cut. If he really is open to waiving his NTC, I'd be willing to see what we can get for him and use his cap hit to bring in a younger, more productive scorer.

If they play him in positions where he can contribute like a top scorer, he likely would but that's not how he's being used. How the hell do you expect Marleau to be a top tier scorer playing with Ward and Nieto? I doubt the team is really all that concerned about it because if they were, they'd give him more offensive opportunities than they have.

 

[OverTheLine]

Marleau should retire in teal. If that requires him taking a paycut, I think he'll do it--especially if he feels he has a chance at the cup with this organization. He's really rooted in the area and I doubt he'd want to uplift his Bay Area-native wife and children unless it was certain our window had shut.

 

[Limekiller]

If they play him in positions where he can contribute like a top scorer, he likely would but that's not how he's being used. How the hell do you expect Marleau to be a top tier scorer playing with Ward and Nieto? I doubt the team is really all that concerned about it because if they were, they'd give him more offensive opportunities than they have.

Well, I don't think there's much question but that he's lost some from his peak era. That is, of course, only natural at his age. Freaks like Jagr or Thornton are just that, relatively unique cases. I don't think we'll ever see Marleau scoring north of 30 again, or certainly not year in, year out like he used to.

I do tend to agree with you, though, that one reason he's not scoring as much is how they're using him. He doesn't need to be one of the team's top scorers any more, since we have other forwards now who can take some of that on themselves. What we don't have is much of any forwards who are as good in a defensive/shut down role as Marleau can be. So, it kind of looks like he got kind of the opposite instructions that Vlasic seemed to have gotten. Vlasic has turned up his offensive game this year, at the (very slight) expense of some amount of his defensive game, since he was taking more chances. Marleau might well have been told to turn up his defensive game at the expense of his offense, because that's what the team most needs from him.

Honestly, I think Marleau's got more trade value than people are giving him credit for. Sure, he won't give us anything like we'd get with a Brent Burns trade, say. But I don't think he's even remotely valueless to the other GMs in the league. If he still wants out, it wouldn't surprise me at all if DW agreed to move him, out of respect for Marleau's wishes, if nothing else. I could see Tampa asking for him, for example. We know Yzerman likes him, and they're probably going to need at least a stop-gap forward acquisition if Stamkos signs somewhere else (which I expect him to do.) Now, if anyone thinks Marleau would get us Drouin, well, this is probably not a bad week for them to stop sniffing glue. (apologies to Airplane). I could also see some team with long-term cap issues (ie, 2017 and later) making a deal with us for Marleau (expiring contract) for someone that has longer term on their deal, but is still a good player, plus assorted minor pieces to balance things out.

 

[DarrylshutzSydor]

If they play him in positions where he can contribute like a top scorer, he likely would but that's not how he's being used. How the hell do you expect Marleau to be a top tier scorer playing with Ward and Nieto? I doubt the team is really all that concerned about it because if they were, they'd give him more offensive opportunities than they have.

While Marleau's speed is definitely not what it used to be (has gotten worse), he is extremely useful on the powerplay. That in itself would be reason to keep him for one more year and let him retire as a shark.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

While Marleau's speed is definitely not what it used to be (has gotten worse), he is extremely useful on the powerplay. That in itself would be reason to keep him for one more year and let him retire as a shark.

I sincerely doubt that next year will be his last year as a player.