Sharks Swimming Through Trade Winds, Part I

The San Jose Sharks have recently signed two Nashville players as free agents--C Scott Nichol and RW Jed Ortmeyer, giving the Sharks two more legitimate checking forwards. They also re-signed forward Ryan Vesce, and added two others with extremely limited NHL experience in Joe Callahan and Dwight Helminen. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to get these players on to the NHL roster under the salary cap. Worse yet, there is no cap room to sign very important players they have tendered qualifying offers to (RW Brad Staubitz, C Torrey Mitchell, and the team's current projected backup goalie, Thomas Greiss). This leaves the Sharks two forwards and one goalie short of a complete roster, and with only one additional defenceman--i.e. at least two players not on the current roster will have to be added just to field an entire team. Since carrying fewer than two scratched players is unwise and unheard of, you can count on that number being four.This necessitates that expensive players ...