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Brent Burns

Adin Hill Enters COVID Protocol; Brent Burns Exits

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For the San Jose Sharks, things are set to resume tomorrow night against the Arizona Coyotes. They are expected to have Brent Burns back in the lineup for that game, keeping his games played streak intact after he exited the COVID protocol today. It wasn’t all good news though, as Adin Hill has been added to the protocol, forcing the club to recall Zachary Sawchenko to serve as the backup goaltender. Nicholas Merkley has also been recalled to the taxi squad.

Hill joins Jonathan Dahlen and Tomas Hertl, who remain in the protocol for the time being but should be eligible to return soon. They both entered on December 21 and have been experiencing only mild symptoms.

Burns’ return is an important one, given his role on the team, but Hill’s absence is going to put even more pressure on James Reimer. The veteran netminder is having a career year with a .936 save percentage through 16 appearances but hasn’t logged more than 36 in a single season since 2017-18. Even then, Reimer has never really been a workhorse, never playing more than 43 games in a single year. Hill won’t be able to give him a break anytime soon, and Sawchenko certainly doesn’t appear ready for NHL action.

The 23-year-old undrafted netminder has an .859 save percentage in nine appearances for the San Jose Barracuda this season. Alexei Melnichuk would likely be the preferred recall, but he is also currently in the protocol along with several other Barracuda players.

Brent Burns Placed In COVID Protocol

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Dec 21: Burns has been joined by Tomas Hertl and Jonathan Dahlen, both added to the protocol today. An additional Sharks staff member has also been added.

Dec 20: When the San Jose Sharks experienced their COVID outbreak earlier in the season, one of the key names that went unaffected and helped carry them through was Brent Burns. The veteran defenseman has played in all 30 of the team’s games so far this season, but that could be about to change. Burns has been added to the COVID protocol, though his placement there is apparently retroactive to December 17. That means he would be technically eligible to return for the Sharks’ next game, currently scheduled for December 27, should he pass all of the medical testing.

Burns, 36, has averaged nearly 26 minutes a night this season for the Sharks and is once again racking up points at a strong pace. The roving defender has 17 points in 30 games, good for 23rd in the league among defensemen. Should he have to miss any games after the holiday break, it would be a huge blow to San Jose’s chances.

Given that no other players have entered in the past few days for the Sharks, the hope is that this is a contained case. If that proves incorrect and other players enter the protocol in the coming days, they wouldn’t be available when the season resumes. For a team just barely hanging on in the Pacific Division playoff race, losing any more bodies could have a dire impact.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

San Jose Not Expected To Make Side-Deal With Kraken

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The San Jose Sharks took advantage of the expansion draft frenzy by acquiring Adin Hill from the Arizona Coyotes just before the roster freeze went into effect. The Coyotes were at risk of losing Hill for nothing in the draft, so turned him into a goaltending prospect and second-round pick before Seattle had the chance to claim him. The Sharks won’t be under the same pressure and Kevin Kurz of The Athletic tweets that they are not expected to make any side-deals with the Kraken before Wednesday’s draft.

As the draft approached, it seemed more likely that the Sharks would make a deal with Seattle to take one of the team’s high-priced assets than to protect an extra player or two. Instead, they decided (or were forced) to protect all of the aging stars, not leaving much for the Kraken to choose from. If the expansion club takes someone like Dylan Gambrell, who recently re-signed with the team, it certainly wouldn’t be too painful given they were willing to trade him just a few days ago. A side-deal certainly isn’t necessary to protect any of those that are currently exposed.

One has to wonder if this is an opportunity missed, even if it would have cost the Sharks a hefty price. While Erik Karlsson and Marc-Edouard Vlasic would have been the top candidates for a side-deal trade where Seattle received something to take on their contracts, both have no-movement clauses that they would have had to agree to waive. It’s Brent Burns then that is the real discussion piece since he has no such protection. The Sharks could have left the 36-year-old defenseman available and worked on a deal for Seattle to assume the $8MM cap hit. That price would have been substantial, but given the team doesn’t have a ton of other prime targets, perhaps a trade could have been achieved.

Instead, the Sharks protected Burns and will seemingly go into another season with $26.5MM tied up in three aging defensemen. His deal, which runs through 2024-25, will actually expire first among the three. Karlsson is signed at $11.5MM through 2026-27 and Vlasic at $7MM through 2025-26. It’s going to be difficult for the Sharks to put together a contending team with that kind of money tied up. Though it would have been painful, a side deal may have been the best option.

Of course, the recent history of trading with an expansion team may be weighing heavily on the minds of many general managers around the league. In 2017, quite a few teams worked out deals with the Vegas Golden Knights to direct their expansion selections, and almost none of them paid off. In fact, many became abject failures that set up the Golden Knights for success while stripping multiple valuable assets out of the original organization. There is a chance, at least, that Burns lives up to his hefty contract for the next four seasons or that the entire group experiences a bounce-back campaign, meaning a trade would have been a huge mistake. There’s also the potential that San Jose GM Doug Wilson did try to work out something like a Burns-trade, only to be rebuffed by Kraken GM Ron Francis completely. Seattle has full say over how they construct their team and whether they want to take on any bad money at an early stage.

Erik Karlsson Does Not Want To Be Part Of A “Rebuild” In San Jose

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Star defenseman Erik Karlsson does not want to become mired in a rebuild with the San Jose Sharks, and who can blame him? Karlsson signed a long-term extension with the Sharks, who not only had gone to the Western Conference Final in his first season, but were considered one of the most consistent franchises in the NHL and even North American pro sports overall since the turn of the century. While Karlsson certainly didn’t take a discount to stay in San Jose, inking an eight-year, $92MM contract that made him the third-highest paid player in the league at the time, there was an expectation that his re-signing would put the Sharks over the top and keep them contenders for years to come. Yet, last season was an unmitigated disaster, as the team finished with the third-worst record in the league, and so far this year things aren’t looking much better. San Jose is again a bottom-ten team in the NHL and unlikely to make the playoffs. People are starting to get worried, and Karlsson is among them.

Speaking to the media, including San Jose Hockey Now’s Sheng Peng, Karlsson stated that “Obviously, I did not sign here to go through a rebuild. [To] go through what I did for 10 years in Ottawa.” However, he did continue on more of an optimistic note. “We need to find a way to build with the core that we have,” Karlsson opined, “I do think we have a good group of guys here.” Karlsson is by no means stating that he wants to be traded, now or in the event that the Sharks continue to struggle this season. Instead, he is seemingly making a public outcry to his own front office, after GM Doug Wilson referred to a “reset” earlier this week, that he feels San Jose has a strong enough core to build upon moving forward rather than tear down and start over.

Karlsson’s comments clearly come from a place of emotion during a difficult time for he and his teammates. Case in point: he vastly overexaggerated the state of the Senators franchise during the early part of his career. Ottawa made the playoffs five times in Karlsson’s nine (not ten) seasons with the team, even coming just one win away from a Stanley Cup Final berth in 2016-17. Only in Karlsson’s final season did they devolve into one of the league’s worst clubs and were truly in need of a rebuild. However, in the midst of his third losing season in the past four years, it seems the losses are starting to weigh on Karlsson and he doesn’t want the team to make matters worse by stripping away the core.

But is he correct that the Sharks can return to relevance as currently constituted? The team has plenty of talent on paper with a blue line of Karlsson, Brent Burns, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Logan Couture, Evander Kane, Timo Meier, and Tomas Hertl up front. There are also some nice young pieces on the roster like Mario Ferraro and John Leonard, and some intriguing names in the pipeline as well. Yet, it hasn’t shown in their results. Additionally, San Jose has a considerable amount of their cap space for years to come tied up in this core and what space they do have needs to primarily be used to rectify a dire situation in net. The Sharks may find it difficult to add impact players elsewhere on the roster in the meantime. Even if there is space, the team may hesitate to add more expensive pieces to their underperforming group. So, if the team is good enough to avoid a rebuild as Karlsson states, it starts with he and his teammates playing up to expectations and showing just that. Otherwise, the Sharks’ brass will have no choice but to shake things up.

Salary Cap Deep Dive: San Jose Sharks

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Navigating the salary cap is one of the more important tasks for any GM.  Teams that can avert total cap chaos by walking the tightrope of inking players to deals that match their value (or compensate for future value without breaking the bank) remain successful.  Those that don’t see struggles and front office changes.

PHR will look at every NHL team and give a thorough look at their cap situation heading into the 2020-21 season.  This will focus more on players who are regulars on the roster versus those who may find themselves shuttling between the AHL and NHL.  All cap figures are courtesy of CapFriendly.

San Jose Sharks

Current Cap Hit: $79,146,667 (under the $81.5MM Upper Limit)

Entry-Level Contracts

D Mario Ferraro (two years, $925K)
F Danil Yurtaykin (one year, $925K)
F Lean Bergmann (two years, $837K)
F Fredrik Handemark (one year, $793K)
F Noah Gregor (one year, $768K)
F Alexander True (one year, $763K)
F Joachim Blichfeld (one year, $737K)

Potential Bonuses:

Ferraro: $213K
Bergmann: $133K
Handemark: $133K
Gregor: $65K
True: $20K
Blichfeld: $20K

Total: $584K

The Sharks are overloaded with plenty of prospects on entry-level deals. The team sampled many of those players last year in hopes of finding some bottom-six depth, but very few players were able to make their mark last year. The most obvious success was the play of Ferraro, who established himself as an NHL defenseman after spending two years at the University of Massachussets-Amherst playing alongside Cale Makar, and now will battle for a top-four spot in the Sharks’ lineup this year. While his offense is still coming around, the defenseman is a hard-worker and impressive locker room presence already after one season and should only get better.

Another player who should get a legitimate opportunity at center for San Jose is Handemark. The 27-year-old SHL veteran has been solid presence in Sweden for years and now will bring his talents over to San Jose in hopes of adding to the team’s bottom-six depth. Handemark had career highs of 14 goals and 38 points in 52 games and should replace the spot formerly held by Joe Thornton. The rest are less likely to make the squad unless one of them can prove they can handle a bottom-six role.

One Year Remaining, Non-Entry-Level

G Devan Dubnyk ($2.17MM, UFA)
F Ryan Donato ($1.9MM, RFA)
F Marcus Sorensen ($1.5MM, UFA)
F Stefan Noesen ($925K, UFA)
F Patrick Marleau ($700K, UFA)
F Matthew Nieto ($700K, UFA)
F Antti Suomela ($700K, UFA)
F Dylan Gambrell ($700K, RFA)

*- Minnesota is retaining an addition $2.17K of Dubnyk’s cap hit and salary

One of the most interesting acquisitions this offseason was bringing in both Dubnyk and Donato from Minnesota. Both be free agents in a year, although Dubnyk will be an unrestricted free agent. The team brought in the long-time Wild starter with the hopes that the 34-year-old might push for the starting goalie spot next season. Dubnyk is coming off one of his worst seasons in Minnesota after many solid seasons. The team hopes he can bounce back and solidify a weak position last year. The other piece to the trade with Minnesota was Donato, a highly-touted college prospect who is already on his fourth team in just three years. The Sharks hope that dropping him into a top-six situation might set the young forward off after scoring 14 goals last season.

For a minimum deal, the team will bring back Marleau, who has the opportunity to pass Gordie Howe for first place in the NHL in games played this season. Sorensen and Noesen should establish themselves in the bottom six. Sorensen looked on the verge of joining the top six after a 17-goal season in 2018-19, but came down to earth instead, scoring just seven goals. Noesen scored 13 goals in 2017-18 with New Jersey, something that San Jose hopes he can re-create this season. The same sentiment goes for veteran Matt Nieto signed out of Colorado.

Two Years Remaining

F Tomas Hertl ($5.63MM, UFA)
F Joel Kellman ($750K, UFA)
D Jacob Middleton ($725K, RFA)

Not much went right in San Jose last year and a major injury to Hertl, who tore his ACL and MCL in his left knee in January and had surgery in February to repair them. However, when healthy, Hertl was one of the team’s top players. He made the all-star game after posting 16 goals and 36 points in 48 games before the injury and was coming off a 35-goal season the previous year. If the team can get him healthy and have him bounce back in 2020-21, the team should be in good shape and have two seasons to observe his play before having to make a decision on a long-term deal.

Three Years Remaining

F Timo Meier ($6MM, RFA)

The 24-year-old forward has proven to be a solid, dependable goal scorer for the Sharks as he posted 22 goals and 49 points in 70 games last year. That’s a touch less than the 30 goals and 66 points he had in 78 games in 2018-19, but considering the type of season that San Jose had, he is still one of the core pieces for the next three years.Read more

Pacific Notes: Burns, Kings, Coyotes, Flames

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There is plenty of time until the next expansion draft, which is expected to occur at some point after the 2020-21 season (whenever finishes), but teams are paying attention to it and how to avoid a major loss. The San Jose Sharks were well prepared three years ago when the team didn’t give Vegas many options with the Golden Knights eventually selecting defenseman David Schlemko, who them later flipped to Montreal for a 2019 fifth-round pick.

However, this time around, general manager Doug Wilson may have some much tougher decisions to make. The team only has two players that will have no-movement clauses before the expansion draft in Erik Karlsson and, unfortunately, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, who at 33 years old, has six more years at $7MM per year. With cap room challenging in the future, Wilson may have to make a drastic move, and according to The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz (subscription required), the team may opt to expose veteran defenseman Brent Burns to the Seattle franchise.

While Burns’ numbers took a bit of a hit last season and he will be 36 years old when the expansion draft comes about, he still remains a solid top-four defenseman and is a candidate to age well considering his workout history. His salary still carries five more years at $8MM AAV, but he could be a valuable veteran piece for an expansion team and could help out the Sharks as well.

  • After having drafted centers in the first round of the past three drafts, (Gabriel Vilardi, Rasmus Kupari and Alex Turcotte) the Los Angeles Kings are lined up to likely select a fourth center in four years with the No. 2 overall pick, which is expected to be either OHL’s Quinton Byfield or German center Tim Stutzle. Regardless, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman in his most recent 31 Thoughts column, writes that won’t stop general manager Rob Blake from taking a fourth center. “No,” Blake said. “You mention those three, we’ll take four centres like that.”
  • Former Coyotes’ reporter Craig Morgan reports that the Arizona Coyotes are expecting to have their entire roster in town by Monday. Several teams are already trying to get their entire rosters in town with plenty of time to get comfortable before training camp starts for the upcoming 24-team tournament and Arizona will be one of the first.
  • The Calgary Flames are also working on getting their team together as quickly as possible. TSN reported that Flames’ general manager Brad Treliving said that the team already has 18 players in Calgary, although several are still undergoing quarantine. However, the GM also said that he expects the rest of the team to be in Calgary by early next week.

Pacific Notes: Ferland, Vlasic, Burns, Tuch, Ryan

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All signs were pointing to the likelihood that the Vancouver Canucks were going to get back forward Micheal Ferland soon. The forward has been out since Dec. 10 with what the team described as an upper-body injury, but has practiced with the team and was assigned to the Utica Comets of the AHL for a conditioning game Friday. However, Ferland’s stint didn’t last long as the Canucks announced he was removed from the game as a precaution after indicating that he was suffering from concussion-like symptoms.

TSN’s Rick Dhaliwal reports that Ferland is still in Utica and is being monitored by staff. It’s a disappointment as the team was hoping Ferland might be ready to return next week to the Canucks’ lineup. Ferland was signed to a four-year, $14MM contract last summer to provide both offense and a physical presence to the team’s middle six, but so far has just one goal in 14 games.

“If fans think its frustrating, how do you think Micheal Ferland feels,” said Ferland’s agent, Jason Davidson. “He wants to play. It was Micheal ’s decision to go to Utica.“

  • NBC Sports’ Brian Witt wonders whether the San Jose Sharks should look at more drastic measures to rebuild the franchise. With the demand for defensemen increasing due to injuries, the team could create a quicker rebuild if they attempt to move one of their veterans, either Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Brent Burns. Vlasic has a full no-movement clause in his contract for the next three years, but would he be willing to return to his hometown of Montreal, now that the Canadiens just lost Shea Weber? Burns has a modified trade clause, but he has just a three-team trade list, severely limiting where the team could trade him. However, if the Sharks could find a way to get a big return for either defenseman, it could hasten their rebuild.
  • The Athletic’s Jesse Granger reports that the Vegas Golden Knights forward Alex Tuch will be out week to week with a lower-body injury. The forward went down Thursday night after crashing feet first into the boards against the St. Louis Blues. It hasn’t been a great season for Tuch, who has struggled this year after a 20-goal season in 2018-19. This season, the 23-year-old has just eight goals in 42 games as a member of the third line in Vegas as he has seen his ice time drop by nearly two minutes from last year.
  • The Calgary Flames will be without center Derek Ryan Saturday as the third-liner did not skate with the team this morning due to illness, according to NHL.com’s Torrie Peterson. The 33-year-old has 10 goals and 28 points so far this season, but will likely be replaced at center by Sam Bennett, who will move over from the wing.

San Jose Sharks Looking To Acquire A First-Round Pick

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San Jose Sharks general manager Doug Wilson probably didn’t think much about including a first-round pick to Ottawa when the team traded for defenseman Erik Karlsson back in September of 2018. After all, the Sharks have been picking in the back-third of the draft for years with the exception of 2015 when the team picked ninth overall, grabbing Timo Meier.

Unfortunately, Wilson is watching a potential disaster at hand as the Sharks find themselves with the sixth-worst record in the NHL with little hope that San Jose will vault themselves in any sort of playoff contention in the second half of the season. Instead, the Ottawa Senators could find themselves with two high-quality lottery picks in what is considered to be a deep 2020 draft.

With the Sharks struggles offensively and need for more young talent that they don’t have from years of trading off their picks or top prospects, Ottawa Sun’s Bruce Garrioch writes that Wilson is “embarrassed” that he traded that first-round pick and is now looking to acquire another now that they don’t have one. However, that could be an issue since the team’s top pending unrestricted free agents aren’t likely to bring in a first-rounder between Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Melker Karlsson, Brenden Dillon, Stefan Noesen, Tim Heed, Radim Simek and goalie Aaron Dell.

With a “For Sale” sign on the door, Garrioch wonders if Wilson will have to make some major changes to fix the team, which would mean dipping into their core. The team could be forced to consider trading Meier, Tomas Hertl and Brent Burns, which would shake up the squad significantly. Unfortunately for the Sharks, Wilson now has an aging roster with major commitments to Evander Kane (five more years at $7MM AAV), Marc-Edouard Vlasic (six more years at $7MM AAV), Burns, (five more years at $8MM AAV), Karlsson (seven more years at $11.5MM AAV) and goaltender Martin Jones (four more years at $5.75MM AAV).

With few young players on the horizon, the Sharks may be in quite a bit of trouble and could be forced to reverse course and start a rebuild sooner rather than later unless the team can turn things around quickly.

San Jose Sharks Name Logan Couture Captain

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It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, but Logan Couture has been named the next captain of the San Jose Sharks. The team lost Joe Pavelski to free agency and the Dallas Stars this summer, leaving the role vacant. Couture was the obvious choice at this point in his career, though he’ll have a great stable of alternates to lean on. Brent Burns, Tomas Hertl, Erik Karlsson and Joe Thornton will all have an “A” on their sweater at times this season. Head coach Peter DeBoer explained the decision:

Since I arrived in San Jose four seasons ago, we have been blessed with a tremendous amount of leadership on our roster. Logan has grown up within that environment and evolved into someone who not only plays his best hockey when it matters the most, but who also leads by example off the ice. He knows what it takes to win and his performance in our recent playoff runs reflects that. Most importantly, Logan has the respect of his teammates and we’re extremely proud to name him as the tenth captain of the San Jose Sharks.

Couture, 30, has developed into one of the most consistent two-way players in the entire league and is coming off a career-high 70 points in 2018-19. While his regular season offense has been excellent—Couture has scored at least 21 goals in every season of his career save one injury-shortened campaign and a 25-game rookie stint—it’s the playoffs where he has made his real impact for the Sharks. A leader every year when the postseason rolls around, Couture has 48 goals and 101 points in 116 career playoff games. His presence was felt all the more when Pavelski went down to multiple injuries this past spring (though they didn’t keep him out long), and it seemed obvious then that Couture would eventually take over as captain.

Among his alternates he’ll have two former captains in Karlsson and Thornton, one of the most impactful defensemen in the league in Burns and link to the next wave of Sharks’ talent in Hertl.

Free Agent Notes: Salary Cap, Marner, Gusev, Duchene, Dillon

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With rumors of the 2019-20 salary cap possibly being lower than the $83MM that teams initially expected, TSN’s Pierre LeBrun reports that an NHLPA spokesperson told him that there should be an announcement on the salary cap this evening.

With talks that the salary cap could be as low as $81.5MM, LeBrun writes that the NHLPA is taking their time to weigh that number. That number is expected to have a significant effect on teams, especially on those that are tight to the cap as that leaves them even less room to work with and could force teams to dump salaries even more than ever.

  • LeBrun also tweets that the agent for Toronto Maple Leafs winger Mitch Marner, Darren Ferris, is expecting to hear from other teams on Wednesday, the day the RFA speaking period begins. With plenty of talks of high demands and a suggested willingness to sign an offer sheet, Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas has his hands full. Dubas and Ferris did not meet this week in Vancouver and Ferris is expected to leave the draft for home, although there is plenty of time for both Dubas and Ferris to meet next week.
  • While many fans of the Vegas Golden Knights have been looking forward to seeing KHL star forward Nikita Gusev play this season, TSN’s Darren Dreger suggests that the restricted free-agent may not end up getting the chance. With plenty of cap concerns, Vegas may not have enough money to sign the 26-year-old winger, and the Golden Knights may opt to trade him to relieve some of those cap issues. Dreger adds that multiple teams have inquired about Gusev, who currently would be penciled in on their third line and could be expendable for the right price. Gusev signed a one-year deal, $925K in April of this year, but he didn’t appear in a game for the Golden Knights. He won the KHL MVP award in 2018 and has scored 63 goals in the last three season for SKA St. Petersburg.
  • The Athletic’s Craig Custance reports that he has heard there won’t be any deal between the Columbus Blue Jackets and unrestricted free agent center Matt Duchene before the speaking period opens on Sunday. While that isn’t a major surprise, of all the Blue Jackets’ big-named free agents, Duchene was their best hope to re-signing. However, especially after the recent P.K. Subban deal, it is believed that Nashville has become the front-runner for Duchene’s services.
  • Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun reports that the San Jose Sharks would be open to moving defenseman Brendan Dillon for the right price. Dillon, who is currently slated to play on the top defensive pairing next to Brent Burns is making $3.27MM, but with significant cap issues coming this offseason, the team could use the extra cap room to try and make sure it can sign all of its top free agents, including restricted free agent Timo Meier, as well as unrestricted free agents Joe Pavelski, Joe Thornton, Joonas Donskoi and Gustav Nyquist, although the latter two are less likely to return.

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