"I love this place, this organization and especially the goalie coaching," Sharks goaltender Vesa Toskala told Ross McKeon in 2006. "I don't know if I can get that anywhere else. Everything is perfect here."
Toskala’s Sharks career will always be defined to some extent by who he was not. Toskala wasn’t Evgeni Nabokov. But, in a way, he owed his NHL career to Nabokov, and he played in Nabokov’s shadow even for the brief period of time where he was San Jose’s number one goaltender.
Toskala is widely remembered in the NHL for his struggles behind dreadful Toronto Maple Leafs defenses, but among Sharks fans he should be remembered for something else: During Evgeni Nabokov’s ten seasons as a San Jose Shark, one goaltender played well enough to wrest the starting job away from him.