San Jose Sharks<\/a> had made overtures of a short-term contract to Ferraro. Ferraro, 27, about to hit unrestricted free agency for the first time, would likely command a better deal on the open market though.<\/p>\nThat chasm hasn\u2019t been crossed yet.<\/p>\n
If there isn\u2019t any movement from now until the Mar. 6 Trade Deadline, that\u2019s going to make for another stressful Deadline day for the Sharks lifer, who\u2019s been a constant in trade rumors over the last few years. This is a much different Deadline than in past years for Ferraro though, not just because he\u2019s a UFA for the first time. Ferraro and wife McKenna had their first child, Solenne, over the summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s there. Everybody knows it\u2019s coming up,\u201d the 2017 San Jose second-round pick said of the Deadline. \u201cBut I\u2019m just focused on playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
On one hand, Ferraro would certainly be in demand around the NHL. Past Trade Deadlines have suggested that the heart-and-soul stay-at-home blueliner would fetch a second-round pick, which sounds about right this year, too.<\/p>\n
NHL Network\u2019s Jason Demers opined to SJHN that Ferraro was roughly in the Connor Murphy bucket of defenseman. Murphy, also a pending UFA, was recently traded from the Chicago Blackhawks, with $2.2 AAV retained, to the Edmonton Oilers for a second-round pick.<\/p>\n
Multiple NHL scouts have also told SJHN that they value the long-time San Jose alternate captain at about that range.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the surprising San Jose Sharks are just three points out of the final wild card spot in the Western Conference as of Mar. 3, and Ferraro has been a key to their success. Ferraro has played 20:52 a night, third among Sharks\u2019 blueliners, behind Dmitry Orlov and John Klingberg, and he\u2019s a first-choice penalty-killer, along with Vincent Desharnais.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just focused on being the best player that I can be to help this team win. I owe it to this team. I owe it to the fans, I owe it to myself too,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to play real well with the goal of making the playoffs here. And whatever happens, having that mindset, I believe will put myself in the best position and this team in the best position.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the organization stands right now, these are hard minutes that San Jose could not fill from within easily.<\/p>\n
Grier has signaled, if the Sharks are in the playoff hunt, that he\u2019s comfortable keeping his pending UFAs, to re-sign or lose them for nothing in the off-season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re going well and things are good and we decide that we just roll through it and see what happens,\u201d Grier said in January, \u201cit\u2019s something we\u2019re prepared to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides Ferraro, defensemen Klingberg, Desharnais, and Timothy Liljegren are also UFAs, as are winger Ryan Reaves and goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic.<\/p>\n
San Jose could also extend Ferraro, like they did Kiefer Sherwood<\/a> today, before the Trade Deadline, but that doesn\u2019t seem likely at the moment. We\u2019ll see what happens from now to Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mario Ferraro wants to be a member of the San Jose Sharks for life. At this moment, however,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[4017,93,11200,1034,4217,4401,88,90,89,98,7642,62644,4218],"class_list":{"0":"post-205083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-contract","9":"tag-featured","10":"tag-free-agent","11":"tag-john-klingberg","12":"tag-mario-ferraro","13":"tag-mike-grier","14":"tag-san-jose","15":"tag-san-jose-headlines","16":"tag-san-jose-news","17":"tag-san-jose-sharks","18":"tag-timothy-liljegren","19":"tag-ufa","20":"tag-vincent-desharnais"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}