The Sharks can do better than Zherdev in a Marleau trade
Nikolai Zherdev is the kind of hockey player who could live a totally separate life on YouTube and in the icy worlds of Electronic Arts hockey games. He is, at times, a poor man's Rick Nash on a Columbus Blue Jackets team with precious few attractions.
But all of these facts do not detract from the argument that the Sharks could probably find a better deal if they're going to trade Patrick Marleau. Now, I know the 6th pick in the draft would (allegedly) be involved, but although the Sharks are a young team they'd have to be drinking the Upside Kool-Aid to make a deal this foolish.
Although I'll admit I felt much more confident about my stance before looking at Marleau's abysmal 2007-08 regular season stats. Yeeesh.
Still, my post-3 OT, 3 a.m., hasty gut reaction is that Marleau is much better than his stats would tell you and that Zherdev has locker room cancer written all over him (not exactly the magic potion for a Sharks team many feel is in need of a heart transplant). Not to mention the fact that, even on a bad team, being a career -52 in three seasons is a tangible sign of a faulty hockey player.
Then again, I'm no Sharks expert. I'll let the our superior trio of Shark Snarks handle the majority of what I'm sure will be quite a busy sowing circle regarding The Guy Who Was Drafted After Jumbo Joe.
Credit goes to Greg W(ishinsffkskfskfsi...seriously, that guy has a devilishly hard-to-spell last name), the Ultimo Dragon of hockey bloggers, for bringing this rumor to my attention.
3 comments:
Well, it's got to be a salary play. Per NHLSCAP, Zherdev would be about $3M cheaper than Marleau next year. Maybe that enables the Sharks to sign Campbell, or keep Clowe, or whatever, but it's more complex than "is Zherdev as good as Marleau?"
It's almost an irrelevant question, sort of like "who's better: Fedorov or Beauchemin?" The salary is a bigger factor almost than talent.
Zherdev reminds me of a higher paid Koryluk. Can't make that trade unless it is a salary dump. Even so, I think they could make a better deal elsewhere.
I think yahoo was wrong, he was a -41 the last three seasons. Trading Marleau and (player to be named later) for Zherdev and a draft pick makes the Sharks worse in 2008-09.
If you trade Marleay for Adam Foote and Fredrick Modin in 2007-08, maybe that might have worked. Still not sure though.
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