The San Jose Sharks Are Up To Something
Well, folks, I know that Shark Week isn’t until next month but it looks like San Jose is looking to get the party started a little sooner. You see, it all started earlier this week when the Sharks made a trade with the Ottawa Senators where they sent Mikkel Boedker and a couple other pieces to Ottawa for Mike Hoffman and a couple of other pieces. The Sharks then turned right around and shipped Mike Hoffman off to Florida for 3 draft picks next year. So really what happened is the Sharks were able to get Mikkel Boedker off their books and they picked up a bunch of draft picks in the process. Boedker wasn’t a huge contract but he’s still making $4 million for the next two seasons so that gives the Sharks a little more flexibility moving forward, especially when guys like Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski are heading into contract years. And then to give them even more flexibility, they did this today.
Martin only had one more year left on his contract at a $4.85M cap hit. Again, nothing too crazy but the Sharks are clearly trying to open up as much cap space as they possibly can. Which means the San Jose Sharks are 100% scheming right now. Scheming for what, exactly?
Well first of all, the Sharks are one of the 4 teams it’ll come down to for landing Kovalchuk this offseason. According to the Pierre’s and Dreger’s out there, it’ll be San Jose, Vegas, LA or Boston. The number that’s been thrown around for Kovy has been $5 million AAV on a 2-year deal. I doubt that gets it done and it’ll take either more AAV or more term on the contract. But still would cap out around $6 million probably. Which the Sharks would have been able to afford before any of this. So all of this maneuvering isn’t just for Ilya Kovalchuk. There has to be another move they’re setting themselves up for. You don’t make a trade for Mike Hoffman for the sole purpose of flipping him if you don’t have a huge move in the works.
The one that makes the most sense is that the Sharks are getting ready to land Tavares. My gut is still saying that Tavares stays with the Islanders but maybe the Sharks buying out Paul Martin today says that they think they have a really good chance of grabbing 91. But if it’s not Tavares, could the Sharks potentially have another trade in the works with Ottawa? This time for Erik Karlsson. I mean… Ottawa kind of owes San Jose one for taking Hoffman off their hands even though the Sharks ended up throwing him right back into the Atlantic Division. But the Sharks still did the dirty work for them first. They’ve got a couple 2nd round picks in 2019, a first round pick in 2020. They have a few good, young players already on the roster who could be nice trade pieces. The Senators are looking to move Craig Anderson, maybe the Sharks could throw noted stoolie Aaron Dell their way. All I’m saying is this offseason has been pretty wild so far, it wouldn’t completely shock me to see it end with a Brent Burns/Erik Karlsson pairing.
Regardless, the San Jose Sharks are most certainly up to something right now. Too many moving pieces for there to be nothing going on here.