We could see it coming for a week now, but now veteran center Scott Gomez will indeed sign with the San Jose Sharks for a very dirt cheap reasonable price. We've talked already about the low-risk, high-reward carrot that dangled in front of the Sharks' front office for taking a pro-rated $700,000 salary flier on the 33-year-old.
Gomez's best days seem to be behind him and pity any team that thinks he can still be a top six forward, but he by all accounts he still has some value. And if by the projections he replaces Michal Handzus as the Sharks' third-line center with promising wings Tommy Wingels and TJ Galiardi flanking him, perhaps the Sharks can get something more than just minutes eaten from the third line. Gomez won't score many goals, but it just doesn't look the Sharks are going to get much out of their bottom six. What he could do is do what he does best these days and that's be a very poor man's (literally and figuratively) Joe Thornton who prefers to dish the puck rather than shoot it. I respect Handzus, but watching him play in teal and the limitations he seems to have now, he belongs on the fourth line getting well under 10 minutes of TOI.
Gomez has a lot to prove that his career is not toast, especially to his adoring fans in Montreal, and perhaps Sharks' Coach Todd McLellan served up the best quote to sum up what might drive Scott Gomez to be a useful and key contributor to his new team thousands of miles away geographically and millions of light years away spiritually from hockey-obsessed Quebec to low-key Northern California:
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