11:55am: The deal is now complete, according to LeBrun. The Hurricanes will receive Burns and Lane Pederson in exchange for Steven Lorentz, Eetu Makiniemi, and a conditional 2023 third-round pick. The Sharks will retain one-third of Burns’ remaining contract.
10:30am: While Carolina moved a notable defenseman at the draft when they sent Anthony DeAngelo to Philadelphia, it appears they’ve found his replacement. Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that the Hurricanes are close to acquiring Brent Burns from San Jose. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman adds (Twitter link) that Carolina isn’t on Burns’ three-team trade list but it appears he’ll be willing to waive his trade protection to facilitate a move. LeBrun adds (via Twitter) that multiple players are involved in the swap.
Burns has been a staple on the back end for the Sharks for more than a decade as an all-situations defender that logs heavy minutes. A three-time Norris finalist (and one-time winner), the 37-year-old is coming off a pretty strong season as he led all San Jose defenders in scoring with 10 goals and 44 assists in 82 games in 2021-22 while logging a career-high 26:09 per game.
The reason that San Jose is moving him is his contract. Burns still has three years left on his contract with a cap hit of $8MM and with the Sharks not having a lot of financial flexibility, it was expected that they’d try to move one of their three pricey veterans on the back end. With both Erik Karlsson and Marc-Edouard Vlasic coming off tough seasons that have them on negative-value contracts, Burns was the logical one to try to move.
With Carolina, Burns shouldn’t be counted on to log anywhere near the type of minutes he did in San Jose with the Hurricanes and he could fit in nicely on their second pairing behind Brett Pesce. He would certainly help replace the minutes that DeAngelo logged last season while being able to help cover the offensive gap left behind as well.
More to follow.
Whoa! This was unexpected.
Raleigh is happening
Unexpected. This has been swirling for the last 2 days…Carolina also in on Johnny Hockey…
The Canes gave up nothing.
What did Grier achieve here?
Moving a bad contract.
The fact they won’t have to buy out that contract in a couple of years. One down, 2 or 3 to go.
He’s going to play on the Sharks top pair and top PP. How is giving away a good player for nothing when you don’t need to cap space helpful even if in a vacuum you can argue the contract is bad…?
That’s reasonable, I guess…given how hard it would be to move the other two.
Canes upgraded for free.
@Josh Bell guy, you do realize that the Sharks aren’t gonna be good this season, right? We’ve got a few years until things might turn around, maybe. Burns is old, he’s slow, and he was the only one with any trade value of our terrible contracts
But you got nothing for him. That’s what I don’t get.
The Sharks have the money to pay him and don’t need the cap space. Seems like there was no hurry here.
JD has a good point…maybe they can’t move him and later and get stuck with all 3, so you just dump him, but…still eating 1/3rd. I dunno.
Steal for the Canes.
They got a third rounder and warm bodies for an elderly player on a bad contract, who’ll be out of hockey anyway by the time the Sharks are relevant again. This is not only far from nothing, this is cap space cleared to pickup younger guys.
Ya it’s trade him now for a 3rd, salary retained and bunch of nothing prospects or hold burns for another year or 2 and have to give up a 1st rounder for someone to take that contract
@josh – Makiniemi is a decent gk prospect, Lorentz a solid 4th liner and a mid round pick is always nice. Canes get the better end (for now), but Grier didnt get nothing exactly.
We’ll see what else the Canes do, but their moves so far this summer are not moving the ball forward for them.
Hard to replace Nino, Tro and TDA. Would have loved to keep all three but we knew it wasnt going to happen. At this point, getting Nino back is key to keep that third line intact.
They’re fine. Loved Dangelo but totally ok getting Burns to replace. Plenty of skill available either equitable or better than Trochek.
This was part respect for Burns has done with Sharks and to get from under that contract, get younger players, as they know Sharks are going to be dumpster material this upcoming season. They made sure Burns didn’t have to suffer through that and opens cap space.