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Erik Karlsson

Senators Notes: Norris, Captaincy, Center Depth

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Ottawa Senators general manager Pierre Dorion delivered an interview with TSN on Sunday, giving a sort of state of the union address surrounding a variety of pressing issues around the organization. One of these is the contract status of pending restricted free agent Josh Norris, who’s in the final year of his entry-level deal that he signed in May of 2019. Norris emerged as the team’s number one center last season, scoring 35 points in 56 games in his first full NHL season. Dorion relayed that he spoke to Norris’ agent, Craig Oster, on Friday, expecting to begin talks with Norris “at some point in time.” While the quote carries a high degree of vagueness, dialogue this early, especially when initiated by the general manager, is always a promising sign on the path towards completing a contract. Norris has already scored a goal this season through his first two games.

More from the Senators organization:

  • Dorion notes that an announcement about the team’s captaincy is not imminent, saying the club will continue to discuss and “take their time” on the decision. Many speculated that star winger Brady Tkachuk could be the next to sport the ’C’ for the Senators, especially after signing a seven-year contract to stay with the club earlier this week. It appears as though the team isn’t quite ready to make that call, as young defender Thomas Chabot also makes a compelling case to be named the club’s captain. Ottawa’s captaincy has remained vacant ever since the departure of Erik Karlsson in 2018.
  • Speaking with TSN’s James Duthie, Dorion mentions that he’s open to holding trade talks about acquiring a center to help the team’s depth down the middle. While Ottawa’s emergence out of their rebuild hasn’t guided them to a playoff spot as of yet, the team’s messaging adamantly reveals that internally, they feel ready to take the next step. It’s unlikely that Ottawa is at the point where they’re willing to mortgage futures to swing a huge deal, but as Dorion mentions, if it’s the right fit, a smaller but still notable acquisition isn’t off the table this season if they find themselves in the race.

Snapshots: Senators, Slepets, Rossi

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As the Ottawa Senators look to finally move past their extended rebuild and take a step toward relevance this season, it is about time they name a leader of this next stage for the franchise. Speaking with the Ottawa Sun’s Bruce Garrioch, Senators head coach D.J. Smith stated that “It’s time for someone to be the leader of this group.” Smith believes that Ottawa is ready to name a captain after a three-season hiatus and tells Garrioch that he intends to speak with owner Eugene Melnyk and GM Pierre Dorion about making a decision before the end of training camp. The last player to wear the “C” was Erik Karlsson during the 2017-18 season and the Senators have used only alternates in the years since. However, with young defenseman Thomas Chabot signed long-term and young forward Brady Tkachuk hoping to join him for years to come, the Senators have two players that can be the face of the franchise for many years and either one would be a good pick as captain. Which one will be a difficult and important decision for the young locker room, which is why the organization’s leaders have taken their time and will still wait to name a captain until closer to the beginning of the season.

  • The odds of Carolina Hurricanes prospect Kirill Slepets making the jump to North America any time soon took another hit today. Just two weeks ago, Slepets re-signed in the KHL on a one-year deal with Spartak Moscow. The move came on the heels of a poor season for Slepets in which he played exclusively in the second-tier VHL rather than the KHL and led some to believe that the 22-year-old may cross the pond to continue his development. Instead, he stayed in Russia and after today’s trade may be settling in for an extended stay. Spartak has traded Slepets to his hometown team, Amur Khabarovsk, the club announced. Going the other way was former NHL forward Andrei Loktionov, proving that Slepets still has value in the KHL despite a down year. He has even more value to Amur, who are very excited to bring the prodigal son home and could be able to convince him to stay long-term. The 2019 fifth-round pick remains an interesting project to watch for the Hurricanes, especially given the ability he flashed at the junior level, but his NHL future is more in doubt now than ever.
  • Minnesota Wild prospect Marco Rossi has no doubt that he is ready to compete for an NHL roster spot after missing this past season due to an extensive battle with COVID-19. The 2020 No. 9 overall pick has been working out hard to get back into game shape and will get his first test this week suiting up for Austria in the Olympic qualifiers. However, he is already looking ahead to Wild training camp and is confident that he can make impact in Minnesota this year. Talking to The Athletic’s Michael Russo, Rossi stated the following:

I know I haven’t played a lot of games in the last year, year and a half, but now that I can see my fitness level and my shape, I know I’m better in shape than a lot of NHL players. I see no doubt about it that I can play in the NHL. I know I can play there. I know how good I am, but I have to prove myself in training camp that I’m ready for that. I know it’s going to be up to me to show I’m ready to play right away.

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.

West Notes: Karlsson, Lehner, Parayko, Walker

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The Sharks will be without defenseman Erik Karlsson for at least the next two games, notes Jon Williams of NBC Sports Bay Area.  The veteran is dealing with another groin injury though it’s not believed to be related to his previous groin injuries.  Nevertheless, head coach Bob Boughner indicated yesterday to reporters, including Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News, that Karlsson’s injury is a nagging one that he had been playing through.  However, with just four assists in 13 games this season, it’s certainly fair to wonder if the veteran would be better served by sitting for a little while and trying to come back at full strength.  With a record-setting $11.5MM AAV, San Jose needs much more offense than they’ve received from Karlsson thus far and perhaps this groin issue is at least partially to blame.

Elsewhere in the West Division:

  • Golden Knights goaltender Robin Lehner isn’t expected to travel with the team for this weekend’s outdoor game at Lake Tahoe, reports David Schoen of the Las Vegas Review-Journal (Twitter link). However, he is expected to return to the Vegas lineup sooner than later.  Lehner last played on February 7th and has been battling an upper-body injury.  Marc-Andre Fleury has been quite strong in his absence as he tries to retake his former number one role.
  • While the Blues are getting Marco Scandella and Torey Krug back tonight from their respective upper-body injuries, it’s not all good news for their back end as Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch relays that Colton Parayko’s nagging injury is enough to keep him out of the lineup. The 27-year-old was expected to have a big season following the departure of Alex Pietrangelo but has managed just a goal and seven assists through 16 games and was only able to play 15 minutes on Monday against Arizona.
  • The Kings are close to welcoming back Sean Walker to their lineup as Lisa Dillman of The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that the defenseman is expected to play at some point on their six-game road trip. The 26-year-old has missed the last six games after undergoing nasal surgery after he took a slapshot to the face in late-January.

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

Snapshots: Hub Announcement Not Coming Today, Draft Lottery, Blackhawks

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NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly put the kibosh on any expectation that the final announcement about the postseason’s hub locations would be revealed today, per TSN’s Pierre LeBrun. There was hope bordering on expectation that the chosen cities would be announced today, but there’s evidently much still to consider. In the meantime, let’s see what else is going on around the NHL…

  • Tonight’s draft lottery will decide who gets the top three picks in next year’s draft – assuming the winners of those picks fall in the bottom seven by record, writes The Athletic’s Sean McIndoe. Otherwise, we might be facing a second lottery once the play-in round decides the other eight teams of the lottery field. The Detroit Red Wings have the night’s best odds, but the top pick has only gone to the team with the best odds 30% of the time over the past decade. After the Red Wings, the Ottawa Senators hold each of the next best slots, one for their own pick, and one for the Sharks pick they acquired in the Erik Karlsson deal.
  • Chicago Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman hasn’t engaged with their impending free agents, a list largely comprised of arbitration-eligible restricted free agents, per The Athletic’s Mark Lazerus. Goaltender Corey Crawford is their highest-issue unrestricted free agent, as the 35-year-old netminder held sway between the pipes for two Chicago championships. Restricted free agent Drake Caggiula also presents an interesting case, writes Lazerus, as the speedster expected that his broken hand would be the end of his season. The long layoff and expanded playoff pool has presented Caggiula with an opportunity to build his case ahead of what’s expected to be a rather tepid free agency.

Bob Boughner Has The Upper Hand To Remain As Sharks Head Coach

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While the Sharks haven’t entirely committed to removing the interim tag from head coach Bob Boughner, it certainly seems as if they’re leaning in that direction.  Speaking on a recent conference call, GM Doug Wilson told reporters, including Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News that Boughner currently has the upper hand in the process but that they intend to do a thorough review once the season officially comes to an end.

Boughner was named as the interim bench boss back in December, taking over from Peter DeBoer (who took over as the head coach in Vegas barely a month later).  While San Jose sits at the bottom of the standings in the West (they have a 14-20-3 record under Boughner after being 15-16-2 under DeBoer), Wilson felt there was some progress made in the second half of the year:

I was pleased to see some of the overall play improve over the last half of the year. There were times more often than not that we were playing the game the right way.

Of course, Boughner’s performance behind the bench this season isn’t the only reason that he is the frontrunner to get the job on a full-time basis.  He spent two years as an assistant with the team (2015-16 and 2016-17) before joining Florida as their head coach and a good chunk of the core is still there and that familiarity certainly doesn’t hurt.

If he does eventually have the interim tag removed, a quick turnaround is going to be expected.  The Sharks don’t have much in the way of salary cap flexibility to change their roster so the majority of their core will likely return.

Having fewer top players go down with injuries will certainly help in that regard and Wilson did have some positive news on that front.  Center Tomas Hertl is well ahead of schedule in his recovery from knee surgery while defenseman Erik Karlsson (thumb) and center Logan Couture (concussion) are close to being fully healthy and could return if the season resumes at some point over the coming weeks and months.

Snapshots: Sharks, Marchenko, Hronek

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Call it the thinnest of silver linings, but the numerous injuries of the San Jose Sharks may actually help the team to make something of their season. In a year in which everything has gone wrong in San Jose, including the season-ending injuries of Erik Karlsson and Tomas Hertl, the team is now in a position to take on considerable salary due to those absences and reap the rewards of doing so, writes NBC Sports’ Marcus White. The once cap-strapped Sharks now have more than $6MM in salary cap space following the trade of defenseman Brenden Dillon and that number could increase if more deals are made. This could allow for San Jose to land a pick or prospect from a contender lacking in cap flexibility who has been weighed down by a bad contract. Of course, the team would likely be looking for expiring contracts so as not to carry the added cap weight into next season, when they hope to be healthy and competitive once again. Still, there are a number of bad contracts out there that the Sharks could take on, making the most of a deadline in which they otherwise don’t have many valuable pieces to trade away.

  • Former NHL defenseman Alexey Marchenko is eyeing a return to North America and KHL insider Igor Eronko thinks that he has identified the most likely landing spot. Eronko notes that Marchenko’s teammate with CSKA Moscow is Montreal Canadiens’ top defensive prospect Alexander Romanov and the highest likelihood that Romanov could make the jump next year would be if he is joined by a familiar face. Marchenko, who struggled to carve out an NHL role for himself previously, has improved in the KHL and could be a suitable replacement on the Montreal blue line for impending free agents such as Christian Folin or Xavier Ouellet.
  • One of the few bright spots of the Detroit Red Wings’ dismal season has been the continued growth of defenseman Filip Hronek, who has become a dependable all-around defender for the franchise. However, fans can’t even cling to that as a reason to tune in to games for the next few weeks, as the Red Wings have placed Hronek on injured reserve. His injury is not expected to be serious, but the team also lacks any reason to rush him back to action. Long-time depth asset Brian Lashoff has been recalled to take Hronek’s roster spot for the time being.

Five Key Stories: 02/10/20 – 02/16/20

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Can you really pick just five? In a news cycle in which superstar Erik Karlsson being ruled out for the season doesn’t even crack the top ten headlines, here are the five most important stories (admittedly with some other notes sprinkled in) of the week that was:

Bouwmeester Suffers Cardiac Incident: The hockey world stood still on Tuesday night, after the game between the St. Louis Blues and Anaheim Ducks was suspended under very scary circumstances. Veteran defenseman Jay Bouwmeester suffered a “cardiac event” while on the bench during the first period of the contest, collapsing onto the ground. Bouwmeester required resuscitation by the teams’ training staffs to re-start his heart before he was rushed to the hospital. While awaiting word on his condition, there was an outpouring of support from teams and players in all corners of the hockey world for the well-respected veteran. Fortunately, the team issued a statement that Bouwmeester was in stable condition, followed by a report on Friday that he had undergone successful heart surgery. While questions remain about Bouwmeester’s availability to the reigning Stanley Cup champs this season, as well as the future of the impending free agent’s career, the focus will be on rest and rehabilitation for a while still to come.

Minnesota Fires Boudreau: In 13 seasons as an NHL head coach, Bruce Boudreau has only missed the playoffs twice and those seasons occurred seven years apart. However, one of those seasons was 2018-19 and things were not looking good for a return to the postseason in Minnesota this year. New GM Bill Guerin opted to cut ties with his veteran coach on Friday before he could miss consecutive postseasons for the first time in his career. Assistant Dean Evason was named the interim replacement, while Boudreau will begin looking for a new home – a process that historically has not taken him very long.

Elsewhere in the division, Winnipeg Jets head coach Paul Maurice received the opposite treatment, despite similar struggles this season. Already one of the longest-tenured coaches in the NHL, Maurice received a three-year contract extension from the Jets.

Penguins Acquire Zucker: Firing Boudreau was not the only major shake-up in Minnesota this week. Long-time Wild star Jason Zucker was finally traded on Monday after more than a year of speculation, even through front office changes. In the end, he winds up with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the same team that nearly acquired him this summer for Phil Kessel. Former Pittsburgh executive Bill Guerin made good on his major trade as Minnesota GM, landing a 2020 first-round pick, top prospect defenseman Calen Addison, and a capable forward and potential extension candidate in Alex Galchenyuk. Meanwhile, the Penguins add the forward they have been seeking – especially in light of Jake Guentzel’s season-ending injury – in Zucker, a veteran with the speed and skill to keep up with Sidney Crosby and three more years remaining on his contract at a reasonable rate. Zucker scored two goals in just his second game with the Penguins on Friday.

Devils Deal Two Key Players: The trades kept rolling on Sunday with the New Jersey Devils as the center of attention. Another new GM, Tom Fitzgerald, is making good on his promise to maximize the return on tradable assets from the rebuilding club. In two separate deals, the Devils added a first-round pick and second-round pick in 2020, promising forward prospect Nolan Foote, and minor leaguer David Quenneville. Of course, it came at a cost, as long-time captain Andy Greene was dealt to the rival New York Islanders and fan-favorite forward Blake Coleman was moved to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Still, with such strong returns and pieces like Sami Vatanen, Wayne Simmonds, and more expected to go as well, this is the beginning of potentially franchise-altering deadline for New Jersey.

Oilers Extend Nurse: The Edmonton Oilers needed some good news this week, with superstar Connor McDavid out two-to-three weeks with an injury and fellow forward Zack Kassian suspended for seven games. They got it with news of a contract extension for young defenseman Darnell Nurse. Nurse, 25, signed a two-year, $11.2MM deal prior to restricted free agency and a potential arbitration battle this summer. The new AAV for Nurse represents a sizeable salary bump, but for good reason, as he has established himself as a dependable top-pair defender and a point-producer. While the relationship between Nurse and the Oilers was once a concern, it now seems to be in good order, with expectations already that the two sides will negotiate a more long-term extension after next season.

Sharks Notes: Karlsson, Goodrow, Thornton, Hawryluk

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Despite the devastating news that star defenseman Erik Karlsson will miss the rest of the season Saturday with a broken thumb, there may be a silver lining when looking at the injury.

One small consolation is that by placing Karlsson on long-term injured reserve, it will free up $11.5MM in salary, which could give the team some more flexibility in taking on salary at the trade deadline, according to The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz (subscription required). The team currently has just $5.7MM of cap space it could use at the trade deadline, meaning it would be unable to take back any team’s salary which could increase their return in trades. Now with that $11.5MM available to use, San Jose may be able to benefit even more at the trade deadline.

Another concern initially came when Karlsson fell awkwardly over Joe Thornton as many believed he had re-injured his surgically repaired groin injury, which he dealt with for much of last season. The 29-year-old hasn’t been the same since undergoing offseason surgery and hasn’t been nearly as mobile this year. Kurz added in a separate tweet that Karlsson will have his thumb surgery Monday in Los Angeles, by Dr. Steven Shin, who operated on NBA’s Stephen Curry and the NFL’s Drew Brees.

  • With the “For Sale” sign up and visible, there are many teams who have inquired about Sharks forward Barclay Goodrow, who is having a career season with eight goals, 24 points and 80 penalty minutes. The 26-year-old is very attractive to capped-out teams as he carries just a $925K salary and has one more year on his current contract before he hits unrestricted free agency in 2021. However, the Mercury News’ Curtis Pashelka writes that there has been no indication from the Sharks that they would be willing to move Goodrow, who has become a very versatile piece on the team, who can play any position, play on the penalty kill, and has received a signficant upgrade in minutes since Tomas Hertl went down with a season-ending injury. The team fully expects him to be a part of their future.
  • Longtime Shark Thornton has also been in trade rumors recently, but has a no-movement clause, which means that if Thornton is traded, it will be at his request. However, rumors still suggest that he might be a good fit with the Boston Bruins, for a reunion with the team that originally drafted him and which he played for eight seasons before being traded to the Sharks. Another recent team to come up in rumors is the Colorado Avalanche, where he might be a perfect addition, according to ColoradoHockeyNow’s Adrian Dater. Thornton would serve as a good short-term replacement for Nazem Kadri, who is out weeks with a lower-body injury. He also might be a better candidate to play in a bottom-six role over Tyson Jost, who has struggled mightily recently, going 30 straight games without a goal.
  • Kurz also notes that the Sharks could be interested in forward Jayce Hawryluk, who was put on waivers today. Hawryluk is well known by head coach Bob Boughner, who coached him in Florida last season. With the team looking for depth on their bottom-six, Hawryluk would make sense.

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