Sharks Maxim-ize Lineup!

[RT14]

Well, the Sharks and Ducks hooked up for another deal that sees scoring winger Maxim Afinogenov switch teams before he even saw the Ducks dressing room. Luckily for him, he only moved up the road this time.

To SJ:
Maxim Afinogenov RW, 28y 79ov
Adrian Aucoin D, 33y 74ov

To Ana:
Ryan Suter D, 22y 75ov
Andrew Cogliano C, 20y NR
1st rounder (Chi)
2nd rounder (Edm)

Moving Suter and Cogliano was never in our plans especially after Cogs is lighting it up in his first NHL season, but Maxim is a legit top line winger and although he may be having a bad NHL season, we believe he should be able to turn it around. Regardless, he's still young and helps us out a lot this year. Aucoin is another Flame defender for us and should be able to improve his rating next year as he has played quite well so far this year.

This last week has been a busy one for the Sharks as we've added a lot to our offense picking up Whitney, Yashin, and now Maxim. Hopefully the new faces translate into more wins!

Top two lines now consist of:

Parise 77ov - Whitney 79ov - Afinogenov 79ov
Horcoff 76ov - Yashin 78ov - Tucker 77ov

With that, Koivu will likely be moved down to the third line givng us 3 pretty effective lines. We look forward to seeing our new boys in action vs. the Thrashers in a few days.

It is unlikely the Sharks will be sacrificing any more youth in the forseeable future to get upgrades as we've already sent more than we wanted, but if the right goalie upgrade came available anything is possible.

[I wanna be like Miikka]

The Ducks essentially ended today by trading Shane Doan, Adrian Aucoin and Todd Marchant for a pile of youth. With those three guys heading out these are future of the Ducks coming back.

Ryan Suter D, 22y 75ov
Andrew Cogliano C, 20y NR
Daniel Carcillo LW, 33y, NR
Alex Goligoski D, 21y 7.5C
1st rounder (Chi)
2nd rounder (Edm)
3rd rounder (Mon)

We are glad to add to our prospect base and feel that these moves are best for the team in the direction we are heading. This is a huge downgrade for this year but it adds to our great young core which should develop together and ideally form a contender for a long string of years. Our youth core now consists of Ryan Whitney, Suter, Erat, Carter, Tyutin, Zherdev and Vanek with two young leaders in Regher and Ryan Miller.

[HalifaxDrunk]

Here is that old photo from when Maxim came out of the closet and was traded from the Coyotes. Have fun in sunny San Jose Maxie!

[Goffie]

This deal is another one that makes sense for both teams, the Ducks are in obvious rebuild and get great youth, and the Sharks make their team a lot stronger for this season.

[nyrcrisfer]

Overall the Ducks turned those 3 vets into a pretty good package of youth.