{"id":751133,"date":"2026-07-08T20:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T20:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/751133\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T20:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T20:02:09","slug":"sharks-sign-defensemen-libor-hajek-to-a-one-year-two-way-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/751133\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharks sign defensemen Libor Hajek to a one year, two-way contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sjsharks.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">San Jose Sharks<\/a>\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SanJoseSharks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">@SanJoseSharks<\/a>)\u00a0General Manager\u00a0Mike Grier\u00a0announced today that the club has signed\u00a0defenseman\u00a0Libor Hajek\u00a0to a one-year, two-way contract.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Hajek, 28, spent the 2025-26 season with HC Dynamo Pardubice of the Czech\u00a0professional\u00a0league, scoring 13 points (six goals, seven assists) with a plus-6 rating over 44\u00a0regular season\u00a0games\u00a0and helping\u00a0the club capture the Czech\u00a0Extraliga\u00a0championship, tallying three assists over 17 postseason contests.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He has spent the past three seasons in the Czech league, all with HC Dynamo Pardubice,\u00a0amassing 32 points (13 goals, 19 assists) in\u00a0111 contests since the 2023-24 season. In total,\u00a0he has spent parts of six campaigns in the premier Czech\u00a0circuit, logging 35 points (13 goals, 22 assists) in 138\u00a0career\u00a0league games.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Prior to his return to Czechia,\u00a0Hajek\u00a0played in\u00a0parts of five\u00a0seasons with the New York Rangers, totaling 12 points (four goals, eight assists) in 110 NHL contests from 2018-19 through 2022-23.\u00a0He also played in 129 games in the American Hockey League (AHL) from 2016-17\u00a0through 2023-24, split between the Syracuse Crunch, Hartford Wolf Pack and Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Prior to his North American professional career, Hajek spent three seasons in the Western Hockey League (WHL) with the Saskatoon Blades\u00a0and Regina Pats, serving as an alternate captain\u00a0for Saskatoon in his final two campaigns with the team\u00a0in 2016-17 and 2017-18. He recorded\u00a091 points (19 goals, 72 assists) and 187 penalty minutes over 192 WHL contests. He also spent\u00a0two seasons in the Czech U-20 league, scoring 11 points (one goal, 10 assists) in 57 games with HC Kometa Brno\u2019s\u00a0top\u00a0junior club.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In international competition, Hajek\u00a0has represented\u00a0Czechia at the IIHF World Championships in 2021,\u00a02024, 2025 and 2026, helping the team capture Gold in 2024.\u00a0He also played in the 2018 World Junior Championship,\u00a0tying Cale Makar for most points by a defenseman in the tournament with eight (one goal, seven assists),\u00a0as well as\u00a0tying for second on the Czech team in points\u00a0en\u00a0route to being named a\u00a0top-three\u00a0player on the squad.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The six-foot-two, 210-pound native of\u00a0Smrcek, Czechia was originally\u00a0selected by Tampa Bay in the 2016 NHL Draft (second round, 37th\u00a0overall).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks\u00a0(@SanJoseSharks)\u00a0General Manager\u00a0Mike Grier\u00a0announced today that the club has signed\u00a0defenseman\u00a0Libor Hajek\u00a0to a one-year, two-way contract.\u00a0 Hajek, 28,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-751133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}