Brind'Amour And Forsberg Swimming With The Fishes

(Hartford,CT) It’s official. Rod Brind'Amour and Peter Forsberg are coming to Hartford.

Rod Brind'Amour signed a 3 year $21.6 Million deal while Forsberg signed a 3 year $9 Million contract today. The Sharks also signed unrestricted free agents Ruslan Salei and Dmitry Afanasenkov.

Brind'Amour spent the last 3 years with the Alberta Rams and split last season with Alberta and New York. Prior to that, he won the Hobey Baker Cup with the Toronto Wofpack, spending 2 years there. He began his career with the Boston Beanpots, playing there from 1997-1998 to 2000-2001. A premiere faceoff man and penalty killer, the Ottawa, Ontario native has 452 points in 692 career games.

Drafted by the Vancouver Jackals and traded away just before the team won its first cup in 2001, Peter Forsberg has amassed 506 points in 557 career games with Vancouver, New York, Alberta and San Jose. He played 1 season with Brind'Amour when both were members of the Rams but has yet to win a championship. Although he signed a 3 year deal, the injury prone star center has indicated that this may be his last year. Interesting to note that it was current Sharks GM Robert Dumont who traded Forsberg away from Vancouver back in 2000.

Defenceman Ruslan Salei rounds out the top 6 on the Sharks blueline. The 32 year old from the former USSR has played most of his career with the Montreal Mobsters. He began his career in Detroit but in 4 years with the Mustangs organization, he played a total of 10 games, all during the 2000-2001 campaign. He signs a 3 year deal that will pay him $1.7 Million per season.

Adding insurance on the wing was also a priority for New England as they signed unrestricted free agent winger Dmitry Afanasenkov to a 1 year deal worth $250,000. Drafted by Portland in 2004, Afanasenkov has yet to play a game in the HBMHL and will most likely see action when there’s an injury.

The 4 new Sharks arrive in Hartford in 2 days time for the start of training camp and the exhibition season. Training camp predictions have Heatley, Crosby and St. Louis on the 1st line, Kariya, Brind'Amour and Pominville on the 2nd, Fedotenko, Mikko Koivu and Boyes on the 3rd and Maltby, Forsberg and Bertuzzi on the 4th line. As for defence pairings, expect to see Tomas Kaberle paired up with Sergei Gonchar who will both log a ton of minutes this year while Eric Brewer might see his partner in the form of Tom Preissing. The remaining 4 D are all newcomers; Ruslan Salei and Nick Schultz (a returning Shark) will make up the final pairing with newly acquired Jordan Leopold and rookie Braydon Coburn as the number 7 and 8 guys. In net, the battle for #1 goalie will be fought between Evgeni Nabokov, Andrew Raycroft and rookie Niklas Backstrom.

-Netcam Neely