First, whenever there is an “internet craze”, I always seem to be the last to find out. First or last, I’m still going to post it, cause the animal pretty much proves my assumption that Ben Afflect can be out acted by an animal.

Wait, let me set the little guy up…

Hey, did you hear that the Sharks traded Vesa Toskala for some draft picks? (now hit play)

Okay, now that I have that out of the way, on to the Toskala issue, which for me is an issue as a Sharks fan. It really was not a surprise that one of the two goalies got traded - the other of course being Nabokov - but for some reason thought that since Toskala was the go-to guy in the playoffs he would be the one to stay. I now regret being so naive.

I see this as an early effect of the new salary cap in hockey, because normally there is no way you trade a guy like Toskala and only get draft picks back - I say normally because the Sharks did in fact trade Miikka Kiprusoff for, I believe, a 3rd round draft pick. Nope, with Toskala becoming a free agent at the end of next year, the Sharks could not afford to start 2008 with both Toskala and Nabokov, and my guess is that most teams also preferred not to take on Nabokov’s salary… so the decision was made for them with the new cap rules in place.

To me, I don’t really care that the owners are making a profit again; the NHL is heading down a narrow and treacherous path that sees teams having two goals 1) making money and 2) being “competitive”. This is the same path the NBA went down with their luxury tax, and it totally sucks as a sports fan. The reason why it does is because teams really can no longer have the goal of winning a championship, no, instead it is okay to just be “competitive”, which I take to mean make the playoffs.

So as a Sharks fan, here’s to Evgeni’s health. As a hockey fan, here’s to hoping that the already impotent NHL can’t get much worse.

• Sharks ship Toskala, Bell to Leafs for 1st-round pick (AP)