Pat Falloon: The trade that keeps giving

Based on Steve Dangle’s trade tree work at Sportsnet.ca, we’re going to look at how Pat Falloon continued to impact the Sharks after his trade.

Pat Falloon was the second overall pick of the 1991 draft and the first ever in the San Jose Sharks organization. Even though he left the team in 1995, part of his “legacy” has lived on though a trade.

On the Philadelphia Flyers side of the trade, not much happened. The only player that was traded to the Flyers was Falloon and with the Flyers he played about two seasons, before he was traded to the Ottawa Senators for Alexandre Daigle. Daigle also spent two seasons with the Flyers before being traded to the Edmonton Oilers for Andrei Kovalenko. He only played 13 games with the Flyers before being traded for Adam Burt from the Carolina Hurricanes. Burt played two seasons with the team before signing with the Atlanta Thrashers for his final NHL season as a free agent in 2000.

On the Sharks’ side of the trade, the package of a 1996 first rounder, a 1996 fourth rounder, and the rights to Martin Spanhel were traded right away for Doug Bodger from the Buffalo Sabres. There were many other trades throughout the next 20 years. The Sharks ended up getting players that could be recognized by different generations of Sharks’ fans. Even though the Sharks mostly accumulated draft picks from these trades, those picks brought the organization players like Niko Dimitrakos, Jamie McGinn, and Tom Sestito. These players may not have been stars on the Sharks, but they remained as assets for trade to continue Pat Falloon’s legacy.

In a 2012 trade with Colorado Avalanche, the Sharks got Daniel Winnik, T.J. Galiardi, and a seventh round pick in 2013, sending out the aforementioned Jamie McGinn. Winnik signed with the Anaheim Ducks in 2012. The Sharks drafted Emil Galimov with the 2013 seventh round pick, and later lost his rights when he failed to sign with the team. Galiardi was the only to be traded shortly after the 2013 free agency period started for a 2015 fourth from Calgary.

This trade has lasted over 20 years and eventually culminated in Adam Helewka, who was picked in the fourth round, 106th overall, in 2015 and now plays for the Sharks’ AHL affiliate, the San Jose Barracuda.

The length of this trade tree amazing and it’s still not over, since the Sharks still have a player within the organization as a result. The payoff for Pat Falloon ended for the Flyers in 2000, but the Sharks are still finding value thanks to their first ever draft pick.