Daily Faceoff Live: Teardown in San Jose?
On Friday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Mike McKenna discussed the San Jose Sharks and whether or not they are headed into a full-blown teardown and rebuild.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Let’s flip the script a little bit, it feels weird to talk about this but the San Jose Sharks get a win last night, and yet here we are talking about a complete teardown that’s likely going to happen in that organization. Pierre LeBrun of TSN said yesterday that, and I’m paraphrasing a little, that “the sharks are open to pretty much everything that doesn’t involve Tomáš Hertl” and my mind immediately jumps to a guy that is at the bottom of the stats page here but Timo Meier. Just had one goal in his first ten games, he scored it last night and for me, he’s 26 years old and he’s proven he can be a top-line guy for stretches in this league.
Even if you’re going into this big rebuild, in three years he will still be in his 20s. He can probably still help you come out of this rebuild and I look at Timo Meier as the ultimate sign of where things are going in San Jose. If you trade him, you are committing to suck for the next five years. If you keep him, maybe there’s a chance this is an L.A. Kings-style rebuild where you keep core pieces and get some young talent in there, and then boom — you’re back into the playoff hunt in a couple of years. Meier is the big deciding factor for me, Mike when you look at this list of players who could be available for San Jose do you agree with me that Meier is the name you’re kind of keeping an eye on?
Mike McKenna: Well, he’s the one who I think has the trade value. The problem for me is that Meier is pretty inconsistent in my eyes. I’ve seen him disappear for games, I’ve seen him be unbelievable in games. He’s got to be physically engaged if he’s going to be at his best. If you’re Mike Grier, the GM of the Sharks if you look at your lineup and say “who do I need to keep?” I don’t think Meier is on that list. I think Hertl is on that list because you’re not going to move that contract and he’s probably going to be the lynchpin going forward. So who’s left? Karlsson at $11.5 million, how are you ever going to move that deal? That just seems like an albatross. Does anybody in the league want Logan Couture at $8 million? I wouldn’t. Who else? Vlasic, okay, Vlasic said that he wasn’t used properly last year by Bob Boughner. Well, Vlasic has zero points in ten games this year and is a minus-five. I don’t know who on this roster is going to garner a whole lot of anything on the trade market, but if you can get it, and if you’re Mike Grier I think you need to do it.
In my eyes, they shouldn’t have signed Hertl last year. They should’ve traded him and got first-round picks and done the full rebuild. But, that was before Grier, you can’t look back you can only look forward so I don’t want to say he’s stuck with Hertl. I like Hertl, but everyone else man, clean house and start blank. Look at the Sens, like look at the trajectory of that team and this is something the Sharks could do and mimic that rebuild.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah and with Meier, I do like him and maybe you could keep him around. But you’re right like no one else there is going to get you multiple good assets and if you let a team negotiate with Meier and get him to sign an extension, you’re probably getting, maybe not quite an Alex DeBrincat-Esque return, but multiple multiple solid assets. Erik Karlsson has nine points in ten games. Am I crazy for thinking if the Sharks kept half, he’d be a $5.75 million defenseman, I think there’s a chance a contender bites on him at that price?
You can watch the full episode here…