SAN JOSE — The Sharks added some potentially valuable organization depth in a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday, acquiring veteran goalie Laurent Brossoit, defenseman Nolan Allan, and a 2028 seventh-round selection for the contract of defenseman Ryan Ellis, AHL defenseman Jake Furlong, and a 2028 fourth-round selection.
The key to the deal for the Sharks, at least in the short term, is the 32-year-old Brossoit, who has played in 140 NHL games, most recently during the 2023-24 season when he appeared in 23 games with the Winnipeg Jets.
Healthy again after a challenging, injury-filled year that included multiple knee and hip surgeries, causing him to miss the entire 2024-25 season, Brossoit was 3-3-0 in six games with the Rockford IceHogs of the AHL before the trade. His addition gives the Sharks an experienced third goalie who can remain in the AHL for the time being with Yaroslav Askarov and Alex Nedeljkovic on the NHL roster.
Brossoit won a Stanley Cup with the Golden Knights in 2022-23 and in his 12-year professional career, has compiled a 64-46-13 record and a .911 save percentage in stints with the Edmonton Oilers, Jets, and Golden Knights. During the 2023 playoffs, Brossoit appeared in eight games and recorded a .894 save percentage and a 5-2 record.
The Blackhawks didn’t retain any salary in the deal but the playoff-contending Sharks still cleared up close to $3 million in cap space to help accommodate any possible additions via trade later this season.
Brossoit is in the second year of a two-year, $6.6 million contract he signed with Chicago in July 2024, but he never played for the team.
In Aug. 2024, Brossoit had what he thought was going to be routine surgery to repair the meniscus in his right knee, with the expectation that he would be back to full health roughly six weeks later. But the knee never improved enough to where he could play in a game, and it got to the point — after meeting with several specialists — that Brossoit thought he might not play again.
“It was looking pretty bleak,” Brossoit told the Chicago Sun-Times in an article published on Nov. 25.
This past summer, Brossoit and doctors, after examining his right hip, found the root cause of the knee pain — a cam lesion on the head of his femur that was causing issues with cartilage inside the joint. Brossoit suspected that could be the issue after he previously had problems with his left hip that was causing back pain.
After surgery to address the cam lesion, Brossoit worked his way back and played his first game since April 2024 on Dec. 5 when Rockford hosted the Colorado Eagles.
Both Brossoit and Allan have been assigned to the Barracuda, whose next game is Saturday at home against the Bakersfield Condors. The Barracuda will have a banner-raising ceremony that night for Roy Sommer, the AHL’s all-time winningest head coach who coached Sharks minor league affiliates for 23 seasons.
The 6-foot-2, 194-pound Allan, taken 32nd overall by the Blackhawks in 2021, played in 43 NHL games with Chicago last season, averaging 15:08 in ice time. The left-shot defensive defenseman had spent all of this season with the IceHogs, with whom he had six points in 29 games.
Furlong, 21, was a fifth-round draft choice by the Sharks in 2022 and had two assists in 12 games with the Barracuda this season.
The Sharks in October acquired Ellis and a conditional 2026 sixth-round draft pick from the Philadelphia Flyers for forward Carl Grundstrom and defenseman Artem Guryev.
Ellis, 35, will not play again due to injury, but his contract, which carries a $6.25 million cap hit this year and next, was acquired to help the Sharks reach the salary cap floor of $70.6 million. That contract should help the Blackhawks reach the cap floor next season when it rises to $76.9 million.