The San Jose Sharks will have some interesting decisions to make on who to protect in the expansion draft soon. I think they’re going to go eight skaters and one goalie since they’re a really deep team and it’s better suited for them. Who will they protect at each position? Let’s take a look.
Forward Decisions
San Jose have a really deep group of forwards but two obvious ones come to mind that they’ll easily protect. Those two would be Joe Pavelski and Logan Couture as they’re two of the Sharks best players. Couture had 25 goals and 52 points this past season for San Jose in 73 games and he’s signed through the 2018-2019 season making $6M per season. Joe Pavelski is not only the best forward on the Sharks but he’s one of the most underrated forwards in the NHL. He had 29 goals and 68 points this season in 81 games and a year ago, and he scored38 goals last year for the Sharks. He’s still signed at the same cap hit and term as Couture is.
They won’t be protecting Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau because both are pending free agents currently but the next forward that they’ll protect is Tomas Hertl. He’s a great third line center for them and despite only playing 49 games this year due to injury, he’s bound to have a better season despite only scoring 10 goals. The year before he played a full season and scored 21 goals and had 46 points.
The last forward spot is likely going to be between Mikkel Boedker and Melker Karlsson and it could go either way. I’m going to go with Karlsson on this since he’s under contract for three more seasons and because he’s a great depth forward for them. Boedker does play top pairing minutes with Pavelski but if you stick Karlsson up there with him, he’d likely do just as well. He had 11 goals and 22 points in 67 games this season which was his third in the NHL. Could the Sharks easily protect Boedker over him? Yes they can and there’s a good chance that it happens but I’m taking Karlsson over him.
Defense Decisions
The defensive decisions aren’t too hard for the Sharks as obviously they’re going to protect Brent Burns and Marc-Edouard Vlasic who are their two best defenseman. They’re also two of the best defenseman in the league as Burns is a Norris finalist again this season and Vlasic is massively underrated.
The third defenseman they’ll protect is Justin Braun who’s always rock solid for San Jose and is good defensively. He’s always in the top four for them each season.
The last spot will be between Paul Martin, Brendan Dillon and David Schlemko and again, this could go either way as well. Martin has the larger cap hit for the Sharks and is a bit better offensively then Schlemko was this season, but Schlemko has better possession numbers then Martin. His CF% this past year was 53.6 while Martin’s was 51.8. Dillon’s contract is also good as he makes $3.27M per year and is always reliable in the top six. I think San Jose will go with Martin though as he’s better offensively even though he’s a bit older then Schlemko and Dillon.
Goaltender Decisions
This one isn’t hard as Martin Jones is the clear number one goaltender for the Sharks but he will need a new contract after this upcoming season.
Projected protected players and their cap hits
Forwards
Joe Pavelski – $6M through 2020
Logan Couture – $6M through 2020
Tomas Hertl – $3M through 2019
Melker Karlsson – $2M through 2021
Defensemen
Brent Burns – $8M through 2024
Marc-Edouard Vlasic – $4.25M through 2019
Justin Braun – $3.8M through 2021
Paul Martin – $4.850M through 2020
Goalie
Martin Jones – $3M through 2019
Top two options on who they would most likely lose.
If the Sharks protect the players I listed above, they could definitely lose a defenseman such as David Schlemko. Vegas would like that he’s signed for a few more years. If Vegas wanted to go for a forward instead, they could potentially choose Mikkel Boedker as he’s a good depth forward to have on a team and he can play in the top six. They also could go for someone like Chris Tierney as he’s a young forward who plays in the bottom six and had 11 goals this past year. He’s an RFA this year so Vegas would have to sign him to an extension. These would be big losses for the Sharks as they also could lose Marleau and Thornton to free agency as I stated above.
If San Jose were to make a trade with Vegas to select/not select a player, who would it be and why?
There haven’t been a lot of reports surrounding the Sharks yet but if they wanted to make a trade, they could trade one of Joel Ward or Boedker so that they don’t take Karlsson if they don’t protect him as it can go either way as I said above. Ward only has one year left at $3.275M before he’s a free agent. Any one of those players could be dealt so it’s hard to know what the Sharks will do as they have lots of options.
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