24-year-old Henry Thrun has finished his second season with the San Jose Sharks and while it was not a complete season because of injury, he still managed to play a total of 60 games with the Sharks. Thrun suffered an upper-body injury at the end of February and had to leave the game against the Montreal Canadiens. He missed more than a week of play before he was placed on injured reserve. While he returned to play on March 8 against the New York Islanders, he re-aggravated the injury in that game and missed nearly a month of play recovering. The defenseman returned to play the final eight games of the season.
2024-25 production
Despite only playing 60 games with the Sharks last season, Thrun scored one more point than he did in the 2023-24 season.
| Games Played | Goals | Assists | Points | +/- | Shooting % | TOI/Game |
| 60 | 2 | 10 | 12 | -23 | 3.8% | 17:31 |
Thrun ended the 2024-25 season with 12 points.
One of the more concerning stats in this production line is his usage. This past season, Thrun averaged 17:31 minutes per game, a nearly two an a half minute drop off per game compared to last season. Last season, Thrun averaged 20:00 minutes per game and played 51 games.
Has Thrun shown progress?
For Sharks fans, one of the bigger questions is going to be how Thrun is developing as a defenseman. Looking at his regularized-adjusted plus-minus (RAPM) from Evolving-Hockey, you can see that in more than 950 minutes of play at even-strength in the 2024-25 season, Thrun was lower than league average on both offense and defense.
When you look at Thrun’s RAPM chart from 2021-24 (below), which covered the 59 career games that he played prior to this past season, you can see that his numbers in 2024-25 are actually worse.
Some of this might have to do with his usage. For one thing, Thrun is not being used on the power play. The Sharks have moved to a four-forward, one defenseman first unit, and Thrun is not the most offensive of the defenseman options. He’s also not receiving time on the second unit.
As a result, Thrun was handed more defensive responsibility this season, often paired with players like Cody Ceci and Jan Rutta. In these pairings, Thrun tended to take on more defensive and neutral zone starts, rather than offensive zone ones. As a result, this past season, the defenseman spent more time in the defensive zone than in any other zone according to NHL Edge stats.
Thrun handed more responsibility this season
Responsibility for Thrun also came in the form of penalty killing. He was fifth in ice time among defensemen on the penalty kill, totaling 70:21 in PK time. The only other defensemen with more ice time were the veterans: Mario Ferraro, Ceci, Jake Walman and Rutta.
Thrun was also fifth on the team in total ice time. He played 1050:49 in all situations, behind only Ferraro, Timothy Liljegren, Ceci and Walman.
What is Thrun’s role on the Sharks’ defense moving forward?
So the big question for Thrun after this past season is, what is his role moving forward? Thrun is clearly not the answer on offense. In these past two seasons, with the additions of Walman and Liljegren, as well as the emergence of Luca Cagnoni and potentially Sam Dickinson, it’s pretty clear that Thrun is not the Sharks’ offensive threat on defense.
As a result, Thrun is essentially limited to one role as a Shark, a defensive defenseman. The Sharks have Ferraro on that left side to take the first spot on the depth chart. After that, it’s Thrun, Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Shakir Mukhamadullin.
Of the three other left-shot defensemen, it seems that Mukhamadullin might be more likely to take the second spot on the left-hand side. That leaves Thrun to solidify himself as the Sharks’ best option for the 5/6 defensive role, which is where it feels like he’ll end up after this past season.
Thrun’s future with the Sharks
Unless Thrun exceeds expectations immensely, it is unlikely that he will be with the team past the 2025-26 season. According to Puckpedia, Thrun has a year left on a two-year deal that pays him $1 million per season. He will be a restricted free agent at the end of next season.
The timing sets up perfectly for the Sharks, who will hopefully see the emergence of Sam Dickinson, Luca Cagnoni or both by the end of the next season. Since both Dickinson and Cagnoni are left-side defensemen and the Sharks also have left-side players like Leo Sahlin-Wallenius and Jake Furlong waiting in the wings, having Thrun as another option for the 5/6 defenseman role past next season seems redundant.
What’s more, if the Sharks draft defensemen in the first and second rounds this draft, as expected, then Thrun’s status with the Sharks becomes even more tenuous. Expect to see Thrun in teal this season, if there isn’t a huge jump in development from Dickinson or Cagnoni. After that, it’s likely Thrun will be gone.
Editor’s Note: Over the next few weeks, we will be rolling out the player reviews for the San Jose Sharks. We realize there were a lot of guys rotating into and out of the lineup and some of the key depth players were traded. As a result, Fear the Fin plans to focus on the players who are 1) still with the Sharks and 2) played 20 or more games for San Jose this season.
