Season (P)Review: Tom Preissing

Last Season: 7 G, 31 A, +40 (Jesus), 18 PIM

Word That Best Describes His Season: Pleasant.

$11 million dollar contract, $5 dollar haircut.

Tom Preissing signed a 4 year, $11 million dollar deal with the Kings this off-season. Since he’s probably going to be on our team for a while, I figure we should get to know him. Here’s 4 things to know about Tom Preissing:

1) He’s smart. Preissing wrote his senior thesis at Colorado College on the lack of competitive balance in the NHL. Apparently it was actually good enough to be published in an economics journal. So hey, Preissing’s not a moron, good to know.

2) He won the San Jose Sharks Playstation Rookie of the Year in 2003. Since I got that from Wikipedia, I’m not sure if that means he won an award presented by Playstation or if he was rookie of the year on someone’s Playstation game. Either way, it's... something.

3) He is better than Mark Bell. Preissing was involved in a three-team trade where Chicago received Martin Havlat, Ottawa got Preissing, and San Jose got Mark Bell. Since I don’t get to say this very much, I’m going to say it now: San Jose’s front office sure fucked that one up.

4) He looks vaguely like a frog. Just sayin’.

"Nice pass, To- oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else."

I’d like to welcome Tom Preissing back to the Battle of California. We basically get Joe Corvo back except Preissing is a little younger, a little better, and a little less inclined to kick a woman in the stomach. The only thing I'm worried about is the fact that the three defensemen we have under control for a while are Preissing, Lubo, and Johnson, all offensive forwards. Oh well, if our biggest problem in 3 years is that we have those 3 guys on our team, I don't think I'll be too upset. Oh, and Sharks fans: if you have fond memories of Preissing (or Mark Bell), feel free to leave them in the comments.

Report: Toskala to Toronto

...for three draft picks according to Toronto's Fan590. Not sure what the full package is. More details to come...

Update: The Jersey Curse kills Mark Bell. He's part of the package according to Fan590. Salary dump, anyone?

Update 2: John Ferguson Jr.'s on the Fan590. He says the deal is not done and it's premature. Don't know if that means specifics are still being worked on or if paperwork just needs to be filed. I wouldn't be surprised if they're still hammering out the draft picks.

Update 3: Ok, it looks like it's Toskala/Bell for 1st (13th overall), 2nd, and 4th round picks. This clears up about $4 million in cap space. Will offer a full analysis later.

Anyone want to buy a Mark Bell jersey?

Update 4: I did some cap number crunching and assuming the Craig Rivet deal is done for $3.5 a year, the Sharks currently stand at $35 million with Scott Hannan, Bill Guerin, and Mark Smith all unsigned. You figure that Devin Setoguchi will come in at the rookie max plus bonuses, so let's say that it's at about $37 million for now. I don't think the Sharks will push the cap, but I could see them spending to $45 million. Does that mean they'll push for Sheldon Souray or Brian Rafalski to fill out the blueline? A group of Rivet, Kyle McLaren, Christian Ehrhoff, Matt Carle, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic definitely lacks punch.

Boxing Day

Merry Fist-mas day +1. Fight clip courtesey of Hockeyfights.com. Rumors that Earl Sleek was going to be an emergency replacement to backup Michael Wall were unfounded.

Maybe the Kings can loan Anaheim a goaltender.

Tempting fate with the Jersey Curse

Longtime readers of my blog and the Battle of California will know that I am a ridiculously superstitious person when it comes to sports. There's a theory about religion and deities that they're only as powerful as the amount of belief/energy that people collectively give to it. I'm not going to go into a spiritual debate here, but I often wonder why my stupid sports superstitions, like the well documented Jersey Curse, doesn't seem to affect other people. Is it because I'm so paranoid about this?

In any case, at the beginning of the season I decided that it might have finally been time to put a name on the back of my Sharks jersey. At the end of last season, I had leaned towards getting a Steve Bernier jersey, but I decided to wait until a few months into the next season just in case Bernier, you know, decided that all of the awesomeness that he showed us at the end of the 2005-2006 season was a total and complete fluke.

Then the Sharks traded for Mark Bell. Again, longtime readers of my blog will know that I grew up a Chicago Blackhawks fan before joining the legions of disenfranchised Hawks supporters and cutting off my fandom. Still, I watched Hawks games on Center Ice and followed the team at a distant, and I always liked Bell. He was like a poor man's Keith Tkachuk without as much of a pure dickhead mean streak. I thought he'd be the perfect fit for the Sharks, and I was really excited about this trade. As a nod to my Hawks fan past, Bell became my top pick for my jersey.

Even though Bell didn't look perfectly comfortable the first few weeks of the season, he was still producing points and hitting. I was pretty comfortable with leaning towards Bell, but at the same time, I liked how Christian Ehrhoff was the only Shark blueliner who could skate through the neutral zone and fire off a monster one-timer and Milan Michalek impressed the hell out of me. So even though I was still considering Bell and Bernier, Ehrhoff and Michalek got in the running too. This is around the end of October and I figured that I'd never actually make a decision because I'm way too anal about this.

So, my friends went ahead and made a decision for me. And because of this, Mark Bell has sucked balls for the past three weeks.

Until recently, it took a few weeks to put in an order at the Sharks store for a customized jersey (they only had Thornton, Marleau, and Cheechoo at the store). For my birthday, my friends decided to just go ahead and put in an order for a Bell jersey. Right around the time, Bell began to totally suck balls. In fact, Bell hasn't had a point since my friends put in the order for the jersey. Coincidence or the return of the Jersey Curse? You be the judge!

I finally got my jersey at a birthday dinner on Friday night and wore it to last night's game. From my experience, the Jersey Curse lasts anywhere from 1-3 months. Last night, Bell had 16 minutes in PIMs, two fights, and he played with a lot more fire (hitting, shooting, speed) than I had seen in the past three weeks. Is he finally waking up and shaking off the effects of the Jersey Curse? I don't know, but I'm hoping that the Jersey Curse hasn't dragged Bell down for the season. Hopefully, the Jersey Curse lets up sooner rather than later because the Sharks sure could use the Mark Bell that got a good 25 goals for a shitty Blackhawks squad by planting himself in front of the crease and banging in rebounds -- not the Mark Bell who looks totally confused about where he should be in the offensive zone.

That's not good

So, um, hold that thought on the whole Cheechoo/Thornton/Bell line. Mr. Bell has gone and done something quite stupid:

San Jose Police confirmed to NBC11 reporter Susan Siravo Tuesday that a member of the San Jose Sharks was arrested over the Labor Day Weekend on suspicion of driving under the influence and allegedly causing a collision.Police told NBC11 one person was hurt in the crash, but their injuries were considered minor with cuts and bruises.Police said Sharks player Mark Bell faces felony hit-and-run and felony DUI charges. Police said Bell rear-ended a car at an intersection and then got out of his car and walked away. Police said they found him sitting on a curb not far away and arrested him.Bell is out on bail.

Way to ingratiate yourself into the community, Mark. He could plead that he was doing his best Mel Gibson impression. Bell will probably have to do community service and all that crap, and chances are he won't face any jail time other than getting a stern talking to in Doug Wilson's office.

I just think it's funny that he just walked to a curb and sat down. Perhaps he was contemplating all of the universe's many mysteries after he rear-ended that car.

We can rebuild it...bigger...stronger...less defense

In case you haven't heard:

SJ sends Tom Preissing/prospect Josh Hennessey to Chicago for Mark Bell. Chicago packages the two off in another deal that doesn't involve California, so screw them.

My first gut reaction is that I like the deal. It gives the Thornton/Cheechoo line the left wing they really need (anything to stop Nils Ekman from going offside) and adds more size/grit up front. On the other hand, the Sharks have a glut of #3/#4 defensemen and trading away Preissing wasn't really going to hurt them. Preissing had a good year and will probably get another 40-50 points, but the upside on Christian Ehrhoff and Matt Carle is much better.

The problem is that the Sharks are grossly thin on D right now. The pairings will probably look something like this:

McLaren/Ehrhoff
Hannan/Carle
Doug Murray/Josh Gorges

Now, Doug Murray's a big dude, but he couldn't work his way back into the lineup after getting injured. Gorges is a capable #6 defensemen, but it sure would be nice to get someone with more NHL experience back there -- plus, someone who doesn't just get pushed over by big dudes.

Up front, the Sharks top two lines should put the fear of Buddha in any team (except for maybe freakin' Anaheim -- I don't think they fear any forwards with Prongomeyer back there):

Bell/Thornton/Cheechoo
Benier/Marleau/Michalek

It's conceivable that all six guys could hit 30 goals next season. In fact, I'd say I'd expect the first line to put up at least 100 goals and the second line to put up at least 90.

Where does this shove Nils Ekman? My guess at lines 3 and 4:

Ekman/Goc/Grier
Smith/Brown/Niemenen

The Sharks are definitely top heavy, but I'd hope that Curtis Brown can thrive in a role where he's not asked to do too much. Grier's a huge dude who can create some space for his two linemates while shutting down the other team and generally causing chaos. Ekman, well, he's quite the enigma, as his speed can often be neutralized by his soft play and/or general stupidity with offsides. Goc may or may not play 3rd line center -- the kid is so piss poor at faceoffs that I'd consider moving him to the wing or something. The Sharks should hire Joel Otto to teach him faceoff skills. Still, there's nowhere to go but up for Goc, and he did play really well in the first half of his rookie season, so here's hoping for him to at least settle into a 3rd line role.

The nice thing about having so much depth on the top two lines is that things can get spread out when they hit a lull. Ekman can always go back up to the top line if Bell can give the 3rd line guys a spark, or perhaps Grier and Michalek can switch up from time to time. Ron Wilson's got a lot of pieces to play around with, and that's a good thing.

My only request right now -- sign Danny Markov to shore up the blueline. Push Gorges out of the line up with Markov's grit, shot, and all-around play. As for the goalie situation, just hang on to both of them until November when some team gets desperate due to injury and overpays.