The Sharks acquired Brad Stuarts rights by sending Andrew Murray and a conditional 2014 7th round pick to Detroit.
The Sharks made the early move to acquire a solid defender. I remember he was very highly touted when the Sharks drafted him years ago and he played well. I think his offense never really amounted to what was expected, but he's been very solid in his own end and provides a good pass out of the zone. So he's a good pickup for basically a 7th round pick. The conditional pick is contingent on the Sharks coming to terms with Stuart. He'll sign and for fairly cheap. He's made it quite public that he wants to come back to San Jose, as his family lives there. Sending Andrew Murray is fine as he probably wasn't going to be resigned, anyway. So not much is lost here and this gives Doug Wilson stability heading into the draft and free agency.
The Sharks defense now looks something like:
Boyle-Murray
Vlasic- Burns
Stuart- Braun/Demers
Stuart could even find his way to being on the same line as Burns or Boyle depending on what happens with the other defensemen. So this got a bit more crowded and leads me to believe that other trades could be coming through as this opens some doors for the Sharks to decide who they want their core defense to be centered around for the next few years.
I wouldn't be surprised if Boyle or Vlasic is traded. I don't wish to see either gone, but I could see it happening. Though, in all likelihood, the 6 defensemen here just became a lot more solid and could potentially be one of the more accomplished than other units in the league. Doug Wilson has basically made their defense a non-issue. The forward core has some questions to be answered, as well as goaltending.
This should be one of the more interesting off-season for Sharks fans and I am quite excited to see what changes are made.
As always,
Go Sharks!
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