EK was seen as one of the worst contracts in the league prior to his 101 point season and he was a 33 year old with significant injury history and 4 more years under contract at 11.5M AAV per year. Getting rid of the contract at all was going to be a win. He took on a few bad contracts, all ending within 2 years of the time of the trade along with 1.5M of retention (13%). One of the bad contracts (Granlund) has actually been pretty good for the Sharks and might fetch them some assets at the 2024 TDL (though losing the retention slot here makes that tougher...they could offset things by taking back a bad deal, though). Another one of the bad contracts has been serviceable (Rutta) and could potentially be flipped if he can play decently next season, though likely not for much.

The Meier trade was seen as a loss by most people at the time of the trade, but there have been articles complaining about Meier's poor play (admittedly he's stepped things up recently including a hat trick yesterday), Zetterlund has been a great addition and is seeming like a good middle six winger, the player we took with their 1st (Musty) has had a fantastic season in the OHL, Mukhamadullin has looked promising, and we still have a pick in this draft which COULD be a late 1st (29-32) but is most likely going to be an early to mid second in the 40-45 range.

I'm not particularly happy with this trade's return, but I'm going to be patient with it. And yes, I absolutely hate that I'm going to have to see Hertl in that goofy shiny gold helmet.

Edit to add: Fully in agreement on not being happy with the return on Burns.

Absolute blockbuster that I didn't see coming. I thought Hertl was going to stay and ride out the rebuild. Wow and yikes crappy return in my opinion for a good centerman who you can guarantee will put up 55-60 pts a season on a good Vegas team.

Surprising deal. This VGK team will be absolutely stacked in the playoffs. Surprised they didn't have to pay more than that, espacially with the retention + division rival. Wow.

Didnt see this one coming, not sure how Vegas constructs their roster next year. The two 3rds shouldnt have been needed, and the retention for that length of time hurts. Not to mention its taking up 1 spot, wouldve been better to retain more on Karlsson if it got them more assets in return.

big win for Vegas, although they could regret it in 3 or 4 years if Hertl cant stay healthy and productive.

Btw the golden knights are in the last WC Spot right now. Anyone else hoping they somehow miss the playoffs lmao. That would be golden.

Hopefully Mantha & Hanifin can hold the fort in the next few weeks until Hertl is in the lineup.

Yeah I mean Vegas will 99% be fine but them missing the playoffs would just be an hilarious scenario haha.

Good god. If there ever was a need for the Jesse Pinkman "He can't keep getting away with this" gif, now would be it.

The retention is brutal. 6 more years after this one. They have also used all 3 retention spots.

Umm. The Stanley Cup. It's why players play the game.

I’m voting for San Jose, but I also feel a bit like both teams may have screwed themselves.

I know San Jose wanted to get rid of Hertl’s contract, so the fact that they got a positive return for him is probably good, though having to retain salary long-term again to make it work must hurt.

I don’t understand this trade for Vegas. I don’t see a place in the lineup for him, and he’ll take up almost $7M in cap space next season that they could have used to sign players who seem like they should be more valuable to them, like Marchessault, Hanifin, Carrier, Dorofeyev, Stephenson, Mantha and Martinez. Assuming Stone comes off LTIR by next season and Lehner doesn’t, they now have about $74M in cap hit tied up in players who are already signed, which doesn’t leave much for the guys I just named if they want to try to bring some of them back. The only thing that would make sense to me would be if they don’t think those guys are coming back, so they brought in Hertl to replace one of them. Otherwise it looks like the trade for Dadonov all over again – wasting cap space on a guy they don’t need and will be trying to get rid of before long.

SJS is retaining for a long time on that deal.
But i get them wanting to get out of that contract.
He's not going to be worth his cap hit for 6 more years. If you are lucky you get 1/2 of that.
It's the problem of extending these guys at 29-30 years old to 7-8 year contracts. Slowly the league is learning. Enough pain will teach them.

I am just beyond confused as to why people are destroying SJ over this. It’s a fine return for a player they have no more need for.

Of all the moves Grier has made during his tenure as Sharks GM, this is one of the better ones

I think this is probably the best trade and he is going to look pretty good from that EK trade too. He may have got blasted over that Meier trade but what’s he done in NJ?

To be honest, I bet Boston would have considered trading their 2025 1st and only take back a single 3rd without the retention in the offseason. This seems like selling low unless Grier thinks Hertl is completely cooked. They had time to see if they could get more or avoid the retention. There was no rush!

That’s a huge assumption though. Boston looks great at the moment but they are not far behind moving to where we are now and where the Caps are. They need to be very careful about wasting 1sts.

You’re talking like Hertl is ancient. 30 ain’t old. At worst that contract has 2-3 bad years at worst which still makes it a worthwhile asset for Vegas in a cup window to trade.. basically.. two late picks for two further late picks. All are lottery tickets outside the top 20, most years.
And they can ltir him til the playoffs he’s exactly what they needed for another cup push. Thinking that isn’t worth two fliers in your org without giving up a real prize, is a take!
You’re insane if you think this is good value for a top6 effective Center in his prime. Your reasoning is basically give nothing up ever for anyone because they can age out. That isn’t how sports works. You play to win the game!

Pitt and Boston are definitely similar when it comes to having a bare prospect cupboard, with Boston likely being worse now that their best "prospects" are now being forced into NHL action and no longer count as prospects. But I think the difference with Boston is that their best players today are still young -- Pasta, McAvoy, and to a lesser extent Swayman. That doesn't mean that they won't fall off a cliff, but the strategy for Pitt was more like "let's go for one more for Sid in the next 1-2 years, because after that it's gonna suck no matter what", whereas the strategy for Boston is "we need to stop thinking about the previous core and start seeing if we can get the right pieces around our younger guys for the next ~5 years". The timelines are different. Also, Pasta+McAvoy+Old Marchand+Swayman is no Bergeron+Krejci+Marchand+Chara+Rask, but they have shown this year that it is a core that can still win games. There is some urgency to improve now and not bottom out and waste the primes of the core guys. But you are right that Boston desperately needs picks/prospects too.

All the good UFAs or players on the market are in their 30s and the cap is skyrocketing. Hertl might have more knee problems and that contract probably won't age well, but Vegas is looking at the next 2-3 years as opposed to just 1 more year with a guy like Buchnevich. In years 4-6 that contract is probably going to suck.

Guentzel: wants to explore his UFA options and wants to get paid 10M until he's 37
Buchnevich: the ask is supposedly 2 1sts. Vegas gave up a former 1st and 2025 1st but they got back 2 third rounders. Hertl gives them more term on a guy who ACTUALLY plays C/LW unlike Buchnevich who is mainly a LW/RW
In the unlikely event that Marchessault leaves, they have Hertl locked up

But as far as 3 years down the road, it's possible that Stephenson will remain healthy, speedy and putting up 50 points consistently at around 5M. Plus he has great chemistry with Stone. While I can see Hertl continuing to have knee problems and So that could be a bigger loss than they realize. Plus Hertl's 15 team trade clause doesn't kick in for another 4 years.

This is a pretty good deal for the Sharks to get out from another brutal contract.

Edit: Hertl's knee problems are about 3 years apart (2016, 2019, late 2023) so I may be overthinking it. His latest surgery is just a clean up to help with soreness that he was playing through.

I figured with Butch's system they wanted Hanafin to replace Martinez. I think their D is a core coupled with his system is a big reason why they won the cup. But he needs to be willing to re-sign for that to work!

Exactly, most UFAs, you are going with the fact that the contracts are going age, badly in the end but you cant have it all, you play to win the game. Getting the Sharks to retain for 6 years and not giving away one prime asset was some mastery by Vegas whom continually make the other conservative donkey GMs look like amateur hour. Thinking Vegas didnt do good here is akin to thinking Brad Trevliving did well while not giving up a measley late 1st but instead he gave up all the late picks for depth players like Edmundson, Dewar and Lyubushkin.

A good way to look at it is to ask yourself, if Hertl was a UFA this summer, would you be happy to sign him for 6x$6.75M? If the answer is yes, it’s a good trade. But I just don’t see how he fits in. It looks to me like he’d be their 3rd line center. But there are going to be changes in Vegas this off season, so maybe it’ll all make sense then. If not, they’ll just find a way to get rid of him. They’ve always been good at finding ways to get rid of people when they need to clear cap space.

I agree the 3 you mentioned are a big difference between where we are and where Boston is. Pasta in particular has kept them a playoff team. However, Marchand is about close to done. Double hip surgery at that age is a nail in the coffin and he is clearly declining. After he is gone then you really have lost the last bit of that cup winning team and that core. It won’t be as ugly as what we are seeing and will see more of, but at some point in a few years I can see Boston moving Mac to try to avoid ending up us sometime in the next decade.

I'd like to hope it can't be that hard to convince a 27 year old to be a millionaire in Las Vegas with one of his best friends on the team.