Mar. 1: Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports reports that Sharp’s injury is significant enough that it will stop him from being traded today.
Feb. 28, 4:00pm: If you’re a fan of the Dallas Stars and you hate that they’ve begun to sell off expiring assets this year, you may be in luck. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet is reporting that team doctors will meet with Patrick Sharp at the conclusion of the Stars game against Pittsburgh to discuss a nagging injury. Though he is able to play through it—he played two nights ago and is expected to be in the lineup tonight—it may keep him off the trading block.
Friedman says that Stars GM Jim Nill has been very up front with teams who have inquired about the pending free agent. Though this doesn’t by any means guarantee that he won’t be moved, any team looking for an immediate impact in their top six may look elsewhere.
Sharp is in the last year of a five-year, $29.5MM deal that he signed with the Chicago Blackhawks back in 2011 and is easily one of the most decorated scoring threats on the rental market. With eight 20+ goal seasons (including four in which he scored at least 33) he presented an opportunity to get a player who could provide a real impact with top-line players for the remainder of the season and in the playoffs.
We profiled Sharp a month ago and listed no less than seven teams that could have been interested in the three-time Stanley Cup winner. The fact that he has 47 goals in 142 playoff games and is only owed an actual salary of $5MM this season was just icing on the cake. Sharp is admittedly getting older at 35 and has seen his production slip this year because of concussion problems, but when the market is paying solid prospects for Alex Burrows and second-round picks for Brian Boyle, he still looked likely to command a hefty return.
Again, this doesn’t mean he’s guaranteed to stay with the Stars but it could definitely cool the market on him if he’s deemed to injured to help immediately. Teams may still acquire him if he had a shot at returning for the playoffs, but it would likely have heavy conditions on any picks sent back to Dallas. Obviously the type or extent of the injury isn’t known, but Michael Russo of the Star Tribune guesses that it may have been a collision with Nino Niederreiter on February 16th for which the Minnesota forward was given a five-minute major and game misconduct (video of hit).
Regardless of when it happened, it’s bad timing for the Stars if they wanted to get anything out of Sharp at the deadline.
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