By most accounts, the San Jose Sharks had a good offseason as they look to rid themselves of their dismal 2014-15 season performance. General manager Doug Wilson was much more aggressive in adding to the Sharks roster, and he identified pieces that should fit in well in San Jose next year.
However, a couple of those contracts provide some cause for concern in the mind of Craig Custance of ESPN. Two weeks ago, Custance gave the Sharks a “B” grade for their offseason moves, which placed them in the middle of the pack in the Pacific Division.
Yesterday, Custance rated the contracts of goaltender Martin Jones and defenseman Paul Martin as his eighth and ninth most concerning contracts of the offseason respectively. Now, to be fair, this doesn’t mean Custance hates the moves; it just means there is some worry to be had.
In Jones’ case, the hesitation is clearly centered around the small sample size that makes up Jones’ NHL career. To this point, Jones has only started 29 games in the NHL, but he has accumulated 156 games at the American Hockey League level.
As Custance points out, the early returns from Jones have been great, with Jones recording a 1.99 goals-against-average (GAA) and a .923 save percentage. Those are really strong numbers along with the fact that Jones has posted seven shutouts as well.
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The concerns are valid as Jones offers plenty of talent, but he’s yet to showcase it for an entire 82-game season. I think the contract itself is a great move by the San Jose Sharks as the three-year, $9M contract will be a steal if he performs as expected. The first-round pick is a steep price to pay, and even if he struggles this year, Wilson will stick with developing Jones.
With regards to Martin, Custance seems to be worried about giving the 34-year-old Martin a four-year deal when he’s had some injury concerns in the past. Martin has only played the full 82-game slate once in his career and that was back in 2006-07,
The availability concern is a valid one for someone carrying a $4.85M cap hit over a four-year span. Martin should provide a stabilizing force for the San Jose blue line and was a solid signing by the Sharks in my mind. They probably overpaid for Martin’s services, but that’s the cost of doing business on the free-agent market.
As I’ve mentioned previously, these two moves by Wilson were necessary to the success of the San Jose Sharks next season. Jones is a worthy gamble to take despite the concerns. Bringing in Martin should help out Jones as well and improve a defensive unit that ranked 24th last season in goals allowed.
While there are some concerns with each player, I think both moves will pay dividends for San Jose during the 2015-16 season.
Next: Sharks Offseason Move Grade Out Well