Three Sharks Players That Have to Be Traded Before the Deadline

Your San Jose Sharks are in a difficult position right now. Dead last in the National Hockey League standings, this team has actually found some things to go right for the organization in recent times. Specifically, I am referring to their home record, which has seen them win five of their last eight on home ice. The problem with this is that the Sharks are in the midst of an Eastern Conference road trip.

It’s looking more and more likely that the Sharks are going to have to find a way to move players out at the trade deadline. Pending unrestricted free agents that are clearly not in the plans of Mike Grier and the organization’s front office. Cutting the dead weight to try and make sure the team gets the largest number of assets available to them is going to be very important going forward for this team.

This could be difficult because a lot of Sharks players have large cap hits in the final year of the “flat-cap era” because of the stagnation of the growth of the salary cap due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Retention has been something the Sharks have wanted to avoid in the past, but trying to make sure that this team gets the most out of what it does have is going to be vital to getting through this rebuild successfully.

Not including Radim Simek, who is buried in the minors, there are nine players who will be eligible for unrestricted free agency at the conclusion of the season. With that much roster turnover in one summer, any consistency and relationship built among the team will be destroyed with an exodus next summer. This means getting ahead of it is the only logical conclusion for this Sharks management group. So, who should be moved?