The dust has settled on the NHL trade deadline, and Jeremy Roenick thinks the Sharks stand above their peers in the Western Conference.
"I've said this for the last couple weeks: I think the Sharks are the top team in the West," the NBCSN analyst said Monday. "They have four lines that are productive. Their defense is one of the best, if not the best in the National Hockey League -- offensively and defensively."
San Jose entered Monday three points behind the Calgary Flames for first place in the conference and the Pacific Division. Late on Sunday, the Sharks bolstered their forward depth by acquiring Gustav Nyquist from the Detroit Red Wings.
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The 29-year-old winger has scored 49 points (16 goals, 33 assists) in 62 games, and is only five points shy of matching his career-high. Nyquist pushed play in the right direction in Detroit, and the Red Wings controlled a greater share of shot attempts, scoring chances and high-danger chances with Nyquist on the ice than he wasn't.
Nyquist was second on the offensively-starved Red Wings in points at the time of the trade, and third in goals. In San Jose, he won't be asked to carry that some offensive load, and Roenick thinks that ultimately suits the Swede's skillset best.
"You can't have him every night being the guy that's scoring goals and being depended on to score goals every single night," said Roenick, a 20-year NHL veteran who spent the last two years of his career in San Jose. "But, what he can be is a good support role. ... He's a guy that can help on the second power play. He's a good distributor of the puck, and he has a good scoring touch too when he has the opportunity."
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San Jose Sharks
It's not clear where in the lineup that opportunity will ultimately lie. Nyquist would appear to fit anywhere on the Sharks' top three lines, and his place in one of those trios would push another winger down the lineup and help San Jose's bottom-six forwards create mismatches.
Without Nyquist, the Sharks have scored more goals than any team not named the Tampa Bay Lightning, and they're among the NHL's best puck-possession teams. With him, Roenick thinks the Sharks will be "really tough to beat come playoff time."
"[They] didn't need much," Roenick said, "but what they got out of Gustav Nyquist is a really nice tool that adds a little bit more offense to an already potent offense."