Senators Acquire Tommy Wingels From Sharks

The Ottawa Senators announced that they have acquired center/right winger Tommy Wingels from San Jose in exchange for minor league wingers Zack Stortini, Buddy Robinson, and a 2017 7th round pick.

Wingels has struggled so far this season with the Sharks, spending most of the season mired on the fourth line or as a healthy scratch.  In 37 games this year, he has five goals and three assists while recording 61 hits (he has had at least 200 in each of the last three seasons).  He is averaging just 10:03 of ice time per game, his lowest in any full NHL season.

The 28 year old had spent his entire career with San Jose after being selected by the Sharks in the sixth round (177th overall) in 2008.  In 337 games, he has 122 points (51-71-122), 197 penalty minutes, and 968 hits.  Wingels is in the final year of his contract and is slated to become an unrestricted free agent in July.  The Sharks will retain 30% of his $2.475MM cap hit and $2.6MM salary as part of the deal.

Robinson, a 25 year old left winger, has spent the majority of the season with Ottawa’s AHL affiliate in Binghamton.  In 33 games with the Baby Sens, he has seven goals, five assists, and 18 penalty minutes.  He has also got into four games with Ottawa this year, being held off the scoresheet while averaging just under seven minutes of ice time per game.  He carries a cap hit of $750K in the NHL with a minor league salary of $75K and is heading for Group VI unrestricted free agency this summer as he will have less than 80 career NHL games played at the end of the season and has the required number of professional seasons to qualify.

Stortini is a veteran of 257 NHL games with Edmonton and Nashville but last saw NHL action back in 2011-12.  The 31 year old enforcer has 41 points (14-27-41) in that span while recording 725 penalty minutes.  Since then, he has bounced around with several minor league teams and was in his second season with Binghamton.  In 22 AHL games this season, he has two goals and an assist to go along with 20 penalty minutes.  He has a $600K cap hit at the NHL level and is earning $200K in the minors.  Both he and Robinson have been sent to the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda.

While Wingels isn’t exactly a top six forward at this stretch of his career, he’ll add some grit and some depth to Ottawa’s bottom six while providing some insurance in case of injury at a very small acquisition cost.  He’s only a couple of years removed from pair of 35+ point seasons so perhaps a change in scenery will give him a boost for the stretch run which would go a long way towards restoring some of his value heading into free agency.

As for the Sharks, this clears up a roster spot and a little over $730K in cap space per CapFriendly (Twitter link) which should come in handy with winger Tomas Hertl nearing a return to the lineup from his knee injury.  CSN Bay Area’s Kevin Kurz reports (Twitter link) that there’s a very good chance that Hertl will be ready to return to the lineup on Thursday against Edmonton.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.