It's officially the offseason, meaning the time is right to look into the future. We continue our division-by-division preview of the potential wheeling and dealing with the Pacific Division.San Jose saw its Presidents' Trophy campaign come to a surprising end in the first round of the NHL playoffs, Los Angeles is still the perfect spot for Dany Heatley, and is there any hope for success on the ice in Phoenix?
San Jose Sharks. The best regular season in franchise history ended with disappointment, once again, as the Sharks were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs by the No. 8 seed Anaheim Ducks. Heading into the offseason, San Jose has $46 million committed to 13 players for 2009-10, while the key free agents include veterans Rob Blake, Jeremy Roenick (still deciding if he's going to play or not), Mike Grier, Travis Moen, and Claude Lemieux. Obviously, not any of the core players.
Ryane Clowe is headed to restricted free agency for the first time, while reports surfaced prior to the draft that the Sharks were actively shopping the 26-year-old forward. Could Jonathan Cheechoo be available as well? The one-time 50-goal scorer has seen his production drop, across the board, for a third consecutive season and the Sharks are currently on the hook for a $3 million cap hit the next two years.
Anaheim Ducks. Perhaps one of the strongest No. 8 seeds we've seen in quite some time, the Ducks, after sneaking into the postseason with 91 points, managed to eliminate division rival San Jose, and then push the defending champion (and eventual Stanley Cup runner up) Red Wings to a seventh game. Second-year goaltender Jonas Hiller burst onto the scene with a strong regular season performance, and essentially stood on his head during the postseason, registering a .943 save percentage, leading all playoff goaltenders by a rather sizable margin. In the process, he made Jean-Sebastien Giguere a $6 million backup.
The biggest free agent is probably defenseman Francois Beauchemin, while veteran Chris Pronger is entering the final year of his deal making Ryan Whitney the future of the Ducks' blueline.
There's also the annual waiting game with Teemu Selanne and Scott Niedermayer.
Dallas Stars. What a bizarre season in Dallas. The Stars stumbled out of the gate, Sean Avery cracked a few jokes, the NHL -- and the Stars -- banished him because of it, things started to turn around, and then in late February everything just sort of fell apart as they lost 18 of their final 25 games, missing the playoffs for the first time in five years.
The Stars' cap situation is looking relatively solid, as the team has $40 million committed to 17 players for next season, though, the team's budget may not allow them to spend anywhear near the cap.
Meanwhile, long-time Stars Jere Lehtinen and Sergei Zubov are headed to free agency and first-year general manager Joe Nieuwendyk has said he plans to speak to their agents and get an idea of what it will take to keep them. Unfortunately, bringing them back might just be a case of holding onto the past, as Lehtinen has played just 48 games in each of the past two seasons, while Zubov, now 38, has played just 56 games combined. Great careers, but it might be time to go in your seperate directions.
Goaltender Marty Turco is entering the final year of his contract -- and coming off the worst season of his career -- while the Stars have been mentioned as a possible landing spot for Swedish prospect Jonas Gustavsson.
Still, the biggest offseason additions for the Stars will come from within as they'll be getting forwards Brenden Morrow and Brad Richards back from injury. Morrow played just 18 games for the Stars in 2008, while Richards missed nearly 30 games with a wrist injury and a broken hand (suffered in his first game back from the wrist injury).
Los Angeles Kings. The Kings are loaded with young talent, have plenty of cap space, and could use a big-time offseason addition to return to relevance in the Western Conference. We've already been over it, and this could make the entire offseason for Los Angeles, but it's the perfect team to make a legitimate offer for disgruntled Senators forward Dany Heatley.
Jonathan Quick played well for the Kings in his first real taste of NHL action, posting a .914 save percentage in 41 starts during the season. Los Angeles also has one of the top goaltender prospects in the NHL with 20-year-old Jonathan Bernier.
Phoenix Coyotes. And then there's the Coyotes. Everything associated with this team the past month has been centered around Jim Balsillie and where they're going to be playing in 2009-10, which is kind of a shame, because there's some intriguing talent in the desert. Phoenix made a big splash at last year's draft by acquiring Olli Jokinen from Florida, and the season never really went according to plan resulting in Jokinen being shipped to Calgary at the trade deadline.
Phoenix already started its offseason by moving free agent-to-be Steven Reinprecht to Florida in exchange for Stefan Meyer, while the Coyotes also re-signed Petr Prucha to a two-year deal. Off-ice problems aside, this really isn't a terrible team, at least in terms of young talent and potential: Kyle Turris, Peter Mueller, Mikkel Boedker, Viktor Tikhonov, Zbynek Michalek, and, of course, one of the most underrated players in the NHL, Shane Doan ... all they need now is a settled ownership situation and a head coach.
