Sharks Re-Sign Setoguchi

The San Jose Sharks joined the signing parade with the re-signing of Devin Setoguchi to a new 3-year deal on Thursday evening. Setoguchi was the top ranked potential restricted free agent on the Sharks to-do list and he was rewarded with a $9 million deal, which works out to be a $3 million cap hit per season.

Just because Setoguchi was the Sharks' best RFA to sign, doesn't mean he had a stellar season.  The 24-year old winger managed 41 points (22 goals and 19 assists) in 72 games in San Jose, ranking him 135th among all forwards in the league, which may just be outside the realm of being draft worthy in 2012, depending on the number of participants, of course.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Patrick Marleau	Dan Boyle	Antti Niemi
Joe Thornton	Jason Demers	Antero Niittymaki
Joe Pavelski	Marc-Edouard Vlasic
Dany Heatley	Doug Murray
Ryane Clowe
Logan Couture
Devin Setoguchi
Torrey Mitchell

How do the Sharks stack up to the official salary cap number? The team signed on above, ready to rock the 2012 season, comes in with an annual projection of $53.9 million for all 14 players. That leaves about $10.4 million for about seven, maybe eight, players... nine max. The Sharks are not at all in trouble against the cap, especially with eight solid forwards, a good top four defense corps and their goaltending sorted out.  Just depth from here on in and depth doesn't cost near as much as the core.

Well, with Setoguchi on board for $3 million per, I can't see the Sharks doing a great deal of wheeling and dealing, unless they are going to move one of these contracts in order to facilitate something that only improves the team slightly.  I can see the Sharks play the depths of the free agent market come July 1st, possibly going after some of the better bottom feeders in the market before anyone else does, but that's just about it.

Between $2.75 million and $3.25 million cap hits for forwards in 2012, there are 13 players, including Setoguchi, who scored 20 or more goals, with Michael Grabner also earning $3 million per season, leading them all with 34 goals, while teammate Matt Moulson ($3.133 million) had 31 goals.  Both players make Setoguchi's 22 goals look a little silly.