Roy is a righty and Simek a lefty who, as far as I know, never played the right side. No real competition there. With Roy still out, I'm really worried about RD. There's just zero depth.
Burns
Braun
DeMelo (?)
Heed
Wood
Merkley (in a few years)
It will be interesting to see whether or not the organization addresses the RD. My guess, given the way that everybody is being treated, is that the organization wants to trade Tierney for an RHD and they want to bring DeMelo back as a #7D.
The fact that Tierney hasn’t been signed yet and the organization hasn’t had serious talks with him is just a bit out of character for the Sharks. In general, DW tends to take care of his own and he tends to get things done pretty quickly. Tierney is a fairly decent trade chip that could go one-for-one for a solid bottom pairing puck moving RHD or that could be packaged with a prospect or a pick for a bonafide 2nd pairing RHD. I’m not expecting to see him in teal in October.
The way DeMelo is being treated right now, and the way that he has been treated for a while up to this point, just feels like the way a guy gets treated when nobody really cares about him. DW refused to qualify him, and then said that they are still in discussions. My guess is that DW is looking to sign him to a two-way deal to bring him on as a 7th D and AHL support, while DeMelo is looking for full-time NHL minutes and a one-way deal. I think they didn’t qualify him because a QO would mean paying him more than money than they want to pay him, and doing so on a one-way deal.
I would appreciate if a CBA expert would educate me on this, though.
When it comes to Heed, I think PinkFloyd mentioned before that with the way that he was treated, Heed probably won’t be an option for us in the long term. That would leave us with DeMelo as the #3RD and Kyle Wood as the #4RD. We probably need better than that.