Ryane Clowe trade: Sharks and Rangers fans react

The trade sending Ryane Clowe to the New York Rangers is now official. Here’s a quick roundup of the instant reaction from SB Nation’s bloggers.

First up, SB Nation’s San Jose Sharks blog, Fear the Fin:

The return obviously falls short of Doug Wilson’s reported asking price of a first-round pick and prospect, but, without a contract extension in place and given Clowe’s full no-trade clause, it’s easy to see why the Sharks had to settle for less.

So why did a Sharks team lacking scoring depth give him up? The need to enhance a shallow prospect pool looms large here and selling off an asset the organization likely didn’t see fitting into their long-term plans while acquiring reasonable futures in return makes sense from that perspective. In reality, losing Clowe doesn’t equal a significant dent on the team’s hopes of making the playoffs or advancing in the postseason.

And on the flip side of things, over at New York Rangers’ blog Blueshirt Banter:

Battle of California, the blog so great it can’t decide on a single team to write about, offered another Sharks perspective:

At his best, Clowe is a versatile power forward with playoff experience and several productive years ahead of him. At his worst he’s an old-before-his-time Cheechoo-esque figure who had his numbers inflated playing with rising star Couture. With this trade the Sharks are clearly betting that the latter case is closer to the truth than the former.

And finally, with a neutral view of the work of Sharks’ GM Doug Wilson, we have Chicago Blackhawks blog Second City Hockey weighing in on Twitter:

• Kindl’s sweet backhand … on his own goal

• Printable bracket for March Madness

• Frozen Four field set

• All the NHL trade rumors

• The best of our hockey network