The San Jose Sharks have locked in a right-shot defenseman to hopefully carry the team through in the short-term until 2026 first-round draft picks Keaton Verhoeff and Ryan Lin are ready to make the transition to the NHL. The Sharks announced on July 1 the team signed Jacob Trouba to a four-year deal worth $33 million. The deal comes with an annual cap hit of $8.25 million.
Breaking down the contract
According to Puckpedia, the contract is front-loaded. It includes a no-trade clause for the first two seasons, but after that, there’s a modified no-trade clause.
| 2026-27 | 2027-28 | 2028-29 | 2029-30 | |
| Base Salary | $8.25 M | $6.30 M | $4.40 M | $4.40 M |
| Signing Bonus | $2.50 M | $2.50 M | $2.20 M | $2.20 M |
| Total Salary | $10.75 M | $8.80 M | $6.60 M | $6.60 M |
| Clauses | NTC | NTC | 16 Team No Trade List | 12 Team No Trade List |
The money up front will help the Sharks move Trouba’s contract in two to three years if Verhoeff or another defenseman develops faster than the Sharks anticipate. While not ideal, it gives the Sharks the flexibility to move on from Trouba if needed, especially with his no-trade list opening up the further into his contract the team gets.
There’s also the fact that after a bonus is paid, the actual money out the door in the final few years of his contract is just $4.40 million per season. That’s a pretty palatable number for many teams, especially near the trade deadline if the Sharks need to move the Trouba contract for whatever reason.
What does Trouba bring to the Sharks?
First and foremost, Trouba is an NHL-proven defenseman who fills the team’s most important need on the right side. Given that the Sharks had just two NHL defensemen under contract heading into free agency, the addition helps bolster the blueline.
Trouba also brings some sandpaper, something Grier knows will be necessary if the Sharks make the postseason in the next year or two.
Finally, he brings a veteran leadership voice to the backend that the Sharks lost by letting John Klingberg, Nick Leddy and Mario Ferraro walk in free agency.
Where could Trouba fit on the Sharks this season?
Trouba will not play on the power play, but he will play some of those shutdown minutes that take the pressure off the kids like Sam Dickinson and Luca Cagnoni. Looking at his Evolving-Hockey regularized-adjusted plus-minus (RAPM) chart, you can see that he was impactful in creating scoring chances at even-strength, but his defense did not help the Ducks.
The Ducks finished with a minus-15 goal differential last season. Trouba spent a lot of time playing top-pairing minutes, so he did his part to contribute to that negative plus/minus. More than half of his time at even-strength was skating with Jackson Lacombe.
When he was not paired with Lacombe, Trouba was skating with Olen Zellweger, Pavel Mintyukov and Ian Moore. His defensive partners had a lot to learn. Zellweger had played a total of 88 NHL games before this season, Mintyukov 131 and Moore 3.
Look for Trouba to take on a similar role with the Sharks, skating with the younger defensemen like Dickinson and Cagnoni and potentially covering up for any mistakes the young players might make.
For Sharks fans, the big concern is Trouba’s numbers compared to the other defensemen on the Ducks. When you look at how he stacks up, Trouba was only better than Mintyukov, who has long been rumored to be on his way out.
A change of scenery might fix matters, but that’s never a guarantee. As it looks now, the Trouba contract might not age well, something that The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn sees happening almost immediately, given his modeling of Trouba’s decline on defense.
Nasty, nasty stuff. WOOF. pic.twitter.com/oFMfCkcE0G
— dom 📈 (@domluszczyszyn) July 1, 2026
Conclusion
General Manager Mike Grier needed to fill a giant hole on the Sharks’ right side and he did it with the addition of Trouba. What’s more, he needed to add grit on the backend. He did that as well. The pickings were slim on the free agent market, especially after the Toronto Maple Leafs completed the sign-and-trade for Darren Raddysh. Grier got one of the best of the remaining bunch.
That said, he overpaid by a rather large margin, and the term on the contract is longer than most would like. But all is not lost. Grier left himself some outs, most notably by front-loading the contract and ensuring the player’s trade list expanded in years three and four.
With other teams bidding for Trouba’s services, Grier did what he could to guarantee he got the player he needed. He had to make a signing like this in free agency and he did just that. Interestingly, I don’t think he realized that Darnell Nurse was going to become available today or this deal might not have happened, or at least not at the price that it did.
