Doug Wilson's 'rebuild' smoke screen

It’s not often you hear of teams planning a rebuild on the heels of a 111-point season, but that’s where we are with the San Jose Sharks. The Sharks finished the 2013-14 campaign with the second best record behind the Anaheim Ducks in the Pacific Division, armed with the kind of possession numbers that usually guarantee some semblance of postseason success would be in order. Alas, the Sharks wore that “choker” tag and flopped in a first round showdown with the Los Angeles Kings in which they held a 3-0 series lead.

So it’s with the likes of Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Joe Pavelski, and Logan Couture that general manager Doug Wilson claims to lead into a rebuilding phase. While translating perennially solid regular season performances into postseason success seems to be a bit of a problem for the Sharks, I’m not buying Wilson’s suggestion that a true rebuild is coming.

Instead, what if Wilson is running a smoke screen to get a little bit younger by cutting one of Thornton or Marleau loose, while essentially keeping the remainder of the Sharks’ core intact? Nearly the entire 2013-14 team is under contract for 2014-15 and beyond, and everyone other than Thornton, Marleau, Brad Stuart, Raffi Torres, and Adam Burish is under the age of 30.

Both Thornton and Marleau are still very good hockey players. The trouble with those guys, if we can call it trouble, is that they’re heading into the twilight of their careers at 34-years of age. Thornton appears to be the most logical candidate to be moved, given the heat he’s taken in the media following the Sharks embarrassing exit from the playoffs. He’s not exactly at peak trade value, but he would certainly fetch a quality return for Wilson.

Let’s say the Sharks send Martin Havlat packing via compliance buyout, and one of Thornton or Marleau is moved for something younger and relatively cheaper. Dan Boyle is gone, but Brent Burns is set to move back to defense next season. Jason Demers is coming off of a very good season and he’s a restricted free agent. A core of Marleau/Thornton, Pavelski, Couture, Tomas Hertl, Vlasic, and Burns is much closer to resembling the heart of a competitive club rather than one descending into the throes of rebuilding.

Unless Wilson intends to really hit reset and move every long-term piece he has, this “rebuild” is looking more and more like an opportunist keeping a few years down the road in mind while icing a similarly competitive team like the one that nearly offed the eventual Stanley Cup champions in the opening round of the playoffs.

Something needs to change in San Jose, but it’s unlikely that we’ll see something drastic like a total detonation of one of the most consistent regular season teams of the past decade.

Wilson chose his words very carefully in a Tuesday media session, stating that a rebuild is, in fact, in the works.

"The rebuild is committed to. The players that fit for now and the future, their growth is going to be the primary thing. … Remember where we’re trying to get to. It’s not about here, it’s about there."

Naturally, questions about the Sharks veterans came up.

"I don’t want to put a name on you, but you’re a guy that hasn’t won, had a long career, you want to go win,” Wilson said. “You might say, ‘this doesn’t fit for me.’ I may go to the next guy who has won a Cup. He says ‘I’ve won a Cup, I want to be here, I want to be part of it. That’s an interesting part of my process, and I may want to be a coach in the future.’ I may want to have him because he just fits.”

That’s a rather vague comment from Wilson, but it could be read to say “I will trade one of my veterans if the package coming back is good enough to justify it.”

Maybe it’s all part of a sell job to gracefully say goodbye to the face of the franchise, Thornton. Wilson says it’s “not about here,” but rather “about there.” Semantics. The Sharks will be a competitive team in the Western Conference once again in 2014-15. They might just look a little bit different.