Sharks Sign Setoguchi

The Sharks have agreed to a new 1-year deal for Devin Setoguchi on Saturday, which has been reported to be worth about $1.8 million.  Setoguchi was a restricted free agent this Summer for the Sharks and they seemed to have rewarded the 23-year old forward with a deal that he earned in 2010, more than what his potential could be for the 2011 season, unlike the way they paid Jonathan Cheechoo after his big scoring pay day.

In 2009, Setoguchi did well, scoring 31 goals and 34 assists in 81 games for the Sharks, but all of that took a huge hit in 2010, where he only picked up 20 goals and 16 assists in 70 games.  He went from 47th among forwards in the NHL down to 160th in a matter of one season.  Again, I think we can draw some comparisons to Cheechoo with Setoguchi's numbers, although they were as stellar at the top end, but nevertheless, there does seem to be the same kind of drop off nonetheless.

Now that the expectation bar has been lowered with a lower contract, I think the heavy pressure really comes off of Setoguchi, where the regular pressure to perform every night should still be there.  I would be looking to Setoguchi to score about 25 goals in 2011, making him a good player to pick up in the mid rounds of the pool.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Joe Thornton	Dan Boyle	Antero Niittymaki
Patrick Marleau	Kent Huskins	Thomas Greiss
Dany Heatley	Jason Demers
Ryane Clowe	Douglas Murray
Joe Pavelski	Marc-Eduoard Vlasic
Devin Setoguchi	Niclas Wallin
Scott Nichol
Torrey Mitchell

The Sharks are doing a reasonable job at building their team with a small change in philosophy. They've taken the goaltending budget down and are going to try and build around the core group of forwards they already have in place, which are a pretty good jumping off point. The Sharks have eight forwards, six defense and a goalie tandem signed on for $52.6 million, they have a small bonus penalty to deal with, but otherwise, they have over $6 million to play with to fill five forward and one defender spots, which they could do with some of their youth.  That's a pretty good position to be in.

I like the direction that the Sharks are going in this Summer. They will try to work the formula that you don't need a $5+ million goalie to win a lot of games (or even the Cup) these days. Their defense might not be as star-studded as some, but they should have enough scoring to compensate and go up against teams that have big defenses.  Antero Niittymaki will be a hot commodity in the hockey pool markets this year, as he has just been handed the keys to a strong team in front of him, I could see some huge points from him this year.  The Sharks should still be a good team for points this year, keep your eyes out for them at your draft.