If this summer is to be the summer of offer sheets – or at least an off-season where you can hamstring a pile of teams – the Sharks may want to get that 2016 third round pick back.
Imagine signing Dougie Hamilton to a 7 year, $7.3M offer sheet and watching Don Sweeney squirm, or driving up the cost of Brandon Saad on the Chicago Blackhawks. The Blackhawks are already on their way to cap hell so making things worse for them would only be more amusing.
What would the Dallas Stars want from San Jose for that third round pick? Honestly, I’m not sure. I don’t follow the Stars close enough to give an educated guess at what they’d want. Tommy Wingels, anyone?
Wingels isn’t going to net the Sharks much more than a 3rd round pick if they traded him anyway, not that there’s been any talk of it, so getting their own third back for use in an offer sheet while shedding some internal cap dollars would be a pretty excellent return.
He’s a battler, never gives up and has a decent set of bottom six hands – but I’d wrap him up and send him out for that third round pick in a flash. Maybe they’re successful in an offer sheet, maybe they’re not. It's hard to imagine Boston and Chicago not matching a sheet to Hamilton and Saad. At least they can try. Worst case scenario is they have a third round pick they can use to draft another Tommy Wingels – a player type completely replaceable – and they’ve tightened the noose around someone’s cap throat.
Is it greasy? Absolutely, but that’s why offer sheets are few and far between. Getting that pick back at the draft should, at the very least, be a thought that Doug Wilson has.
What do you think? Should the Sharks chase their third rounder? Who would you offer sheet/terms of the deal?
NHL Combine Is A Waste of Time
The NHL Combine is a sham.
What is the point of fitness testing 17-18 year old kids who aren’t fully developed – and who, as all teams already know, will need strength and conditioning improvements regardless of their results?
This isn’t the NFL. The NFL Combine features 21+ year olds; the NHL Combine features 17+ year olds. One of those actually holds a little weight. To throw away a year, or years, worth of scouting on players because this guy peddles harder on a stationary bike on a random weekend in June a few weeks before the draft is nuts.
The only thing the combine is good for is accurate height and weight measurements and player interviews – both of which could be obtained upon request without a dog and pony show if the teams wanted to. But I’m sure the NHL makes some decent coin off the event.
End rant. Thanks for reading.