Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro has been involved in trade speculation for a couple of years now and with him entering the final year of his contract and San Jose still rebuilding, that speculation should only intensify in the coming months. However, his preference appears to be to stick it out with the team that drafted him in the second round back in 2019. Speaking with reporters including Max Miller of Sharks Hockey Digest, the 27-year-old stated “I’d love to sign long-term here, I want to win here.” However, he also noted that no talks about an extension have started. Ferraro is set to carry a $3.25MM cap charge for the upcoming season and should be in line to land a long-term deal in the $5.5MM to $6MM range next summer if he makes it to the open market.
More from San Jose:
- Winger William Eklund suffered a wrist injury that required surgery in one of Sweden’s tune-up games for the Worlds last May, taking him out of the tournament. However, he told reporters including Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now (Twitter link) that he has fully recovered from the injury. Eklund inked a three-year, $16.8MM extension on the opening day of free agency, taking away any possible distraction of being in a contract year. He’ll look to build off the 17-goal, 58-point effort he had last season in his second full NHL campaign.
- Winger Cameron Lund suffered an upper-body injury at last week’s rookie tournament but it doesn’t appear to be a long-term issue. Head coach David Warsofsky told reporters including Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News (Twitter link) that Lund is listed as day-to-day. The 21-year-old played in 11 games with San Jose down the stretch, picking up two goals and an assist in 11:30 per contest of playing time.
- Earlier this offseason, veteran defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic voiced his displeasure about his buyout from San Jose, suggesting he was misled by the team at his exit interview. Asked to respond to that today, GM Mike Grier told reporters including Pashelka that he doesn’t have any regrets about how the situation was handled. While declining to get into a who-said-what discussion, Grier noted that Vlasic was indeed given a bit of a heads-up before the buyout was completed while his interpretation of the end-of-season meeting with the blueliner was that the possibility of him being let go from the final year of his contract was discussed. Vlasic is hoping to play this season but has yet to catch on with a team.
Huh. Grier was a lot classier than Vlasic was about it. Not too many people would’ve blamed him for responding, “Where in the frigging hell do you get off complaining about how your exit was handled, when not only should we have bought your sorry ass out a couple years before, but we’d have gotten better value from a speed bump; that may have been the worst contract in terms of performance versus salary of the entire cap era.”