As part of a busy July for the San Jose Sharks, the team signed forward Nico Sturm to a three-year contract. The deal will carry a $2 million cap hit.
Sturm won a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche, after being acquired from the Minnesota Wild at the trade deadline. He scored nine goals and 20 points in 74 regular season games overall last season.
The 27-year-old center doesn’t have a ton of NHL experience, having played just 132 NHL games to this point and only two full seasons in the league. That said, he’s established himself as an effective depth forward who could help to stabilize the Sharks’ bottom-six.
San Jose did a good job adding pieces this offseason, after cycling through quite a lot of fringe NHLers to fill out their forward group over the last little while. We can expect that Sturm will likely center the team’s fourth-line, behind Tomas Hertl, Logan Couture and Nick Bonino.
A $2 million cap hit is a fair price for Sturm. He’s not going to produce much but if he can manage 10 goals and around 20-25 points while remaining good defensively and effective in the faceoff dot, the deal will be worthwhile. Even while giving some term, at $2 million per year, there’s not much risk attached.
The addition of Sturm creates an interesting situation if Thomas Bordeleau makes the team, though. The Sharks now already have four centers and someone would have to be shifted to the wing. That said, Bonino has just a single year remaining on his deal, so it’s not going to cause any sort of long-term complications. With Sturm likely on the fourth line as well, it preserves a spot for Bordeleau in the top-nine once Bonino's contract expires.
Sturm was a solid addition for San Jose to add some stability to their bottom-six at a reasonable price.
For analysis on some of San Jose's other offseason moves, check out the articles below:
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