Exceedingly tight-lipped about the machinations of his hockey club, San Jose Sharks' general manager Doug Wilson isn't one to tip his hand normally, but on Thursday night, after signing defenceman Rob Blake as a replacement for Brian Campbell, he did so in a way. When asked if he were finished retooling his hockey club, Wilson was uncharacteristically candid:

``I don't think we are done,” he said. “There is a long time before we start playing games. Every day we're looking at ways to get people. ... There are a lot of things we're still talking about."

That observation – and another, in which Wilson talked about a theme emerging in his off-season moves, bringing in a coach, Todd McLellan, who had recently won a Stanley Cup with the Detroit Red Wings, and a player, Blake, who'd won before with the Colorado Avalanche, certainly foreshadowed his next move Friday morning - to acquire Dan Boyle from the Tampa Bay Lightning for a package of players that will reportedly included defenceman Matt Carle.

Sources confirmed to globesports.com. that Boyle had indeed waived the six-year, $40 million he signed with the Lightning back in February, just before the trading deadline, a deal that the new ownership group of Oren Koules and Len Barrie signed off on. Despite the big numbers on the contract, the Lightning was able to auction off Boyle's rights to a handful of teams, one of them, Ottawa, which dropped out early when the Senators saw how high the bidding would go.
In Boyle, the Lightning add yet another former Stanley Cup champion to the roster of a team that has a history of coming up short in the playoffs.

Boyle was an integral part of Tampa's 2004 championship team and although 31, possesses many of the same qualities as Campbell, a reputable offensive defenceman who had his most recent season marred by a skate slash to the wrist that severed a tendon. In the four seasons prior to that, he'd averaged 52 points per year and in the Stanley Cup run, added 16 points in 23 games. With Boyle, Blake, Craig Rivet, plus youngsters Christian Ehrhoff, Douglas Murray and Marc-Eduard Vlasci, the Sharks now boast one of the deepest defence corps in the league – provided of course the two sides hammer out the details of the trade, which is expected to happen in the next couple of hours.