Blake Re-Signs in San Jose

The San Jose Sharks have decided to keep veteran defenseman, Rob Blake, in the fold for another season. Blake signed a 1-year deal, reportedly worth $3.5 million on Tuesday. Blake was signed on by the Sharks last summer, a few days into the free agent frenzy and it looks like he impressed the San Jose brass enough to keep him on for another season.

In 2009, Blake marked an improvement year with 10 goals and 35 assists in 73 GP, which ranked him 171st in pool scoring in the league, 15th among all blueliners. He marked a 14-point improvement over his last season in Los Angeles, which has to mean great things for the Sharks, especially since they have another good power play defenseman in Dan Boyle, already on the team.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Joe Thornton	Dan Boyle	Evgeni Nabokov
Patrick Marleau	Rob Blake
Devin Setoguchi	Christian Ehrhoff
Joe Pavelski	Marc-Eduoard Vlasic
Milan Michalek	Brad Lukowich
Jonathan Cheechoo	Doug Murray
Jody Shelley

The $3.5 million cap hit that Blake will weigh on the Sharks payroll is actually down by $1.5 million, so that has to make the Sharks management extremely happy. The Sharks now have 14 players signed onto their roster, but the cap hit is still rather high, sitting at $50.3 million (approx.). Among the 30 teams in the league, the Sharks have the second-highest average salary for players expected to be on their roster ($3.59 million), see the table above. This will likely wreak some havoc in signing some of the team's other potential targets, but some movement may also be on the horizon as well.