So, just to dredge up this topic again, Burns as a forward:
What do the Sharks do now? Short term they can keep Burns at forward sure, but long term, with Boyle's time as our #1 coming to an end fairly soon and Burn's salary, the Sharks have a bit of a pickle on their hands. Here is the way i see it at the moment:
- Burns is the only d-man they have who can fill a #1 role. If he stays at forward the Sharks either need to quickly draft, trade for, or develop a #1 dman. All fairly unlikely scenarios.
- Burns may be the most ideal player to be on Thornton's wing... ever. Even more than Cheechoo. He's big (creates his own space) skates incredibly well (huge advantage over Cheechoo) and has probably the best shot on the team. He's highly accurate, gets his wrister off incredibly fast and powerful at the same time. I would actually argue Burns may have one of the best wristers in the NHL today. I could absolutely see him putting up 50 goals next season if he stays healthy. The chemistry is there.
-Burns salary makes the sharks forward group more top heavy and leaves less salary to spend on the back end to fill the hole.
I know the easy answer is "see which problem you can solve first" but it is still worth discussion. I don't see any real chance Irwin/Demers/Braun can fill that role anytime soon (or ever), Boyle has maybe a season left as a #1 still if we are lucky (and isn't traded). We have no one in the farm to fill that role and we are unlikely to draft high enough anytime soon to get a near NHL ready player to fill that role. At forward we do have Nieto and Hertl, and drafting skilled forwards is easier than defense. Do the Sharks bet that they can somehow fill that hole or do they put Burns back on D?
This was an easy decision when the Sharks were playing a system that wasn't working and had zero puck movement from the defense (aside from Boyle). Now that the Sharks have suddenly reverted to a completely different system and are encouraging the defense to move the puck (and it's working very well), i'm less sure.
What do you guys think?