With the NHL trade deadline just a few days away, the San Jose Sharks traded another one of the team’s pending unrestricted free agents. Early this morning it was announced that General Manager Mike Grier made a deal with the Florida Panthers. The deal sends goaltender Vitek Vanecek to the Panthers in exchange for forward Patrick Giles.
I suppose if we had been thinking about it a little harder last night, we could have seen this coming. The Sharks played Vanecek in a backup role last night, pending a trade. Meantime, the Panthers were in need of goaltending reinforcements after sending Spencer Knight to the Chicago Blackhawks over the weekend in exchange for Seth Jones.
The 29-year-old Vanecek played 18 games for the Sharks this season and finished with a 3-10-3 record. He had a 3.88 goals against average and a .882 save percentage. While the numbers aren’t the best, Vanecek had his moments. He made a career-high 49 saves on Nov. 5, 2024, against the Columbus Blue Jackets, helping the Sharks win the game 2-1 in overtime.
Vanecek will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season and has a cap hit of $3.4 million. The Sharks have called up Georgi Romanov from the San Jose Barracuda to backup Alexandar Georgiev in the net.
For those of you playing the trade tree game, the Sharks acquired Vanecek last season in a trade with the New Jersey Devils. The Sharks sent Kaapo Kahkonen to the Devils and received Vanecek and a 2025 seventh-round pick in return. Kahkonen was originally acquired from the Minnesota Wild along with a 2022 fifth-round pick (Jake Furlong) in March of 2022 for defenseman Jacob Middleton. The Sharks re-signed Kahkonen that summer.
What we know about Patrick Giles
So what did the Sharks receive in return?
Patrick Giles is a 25-year-old right wing who is in the first season of a two-year deal that pays him $775,000 per season. He is waivers exempt, which means he can be moved between the NHL and AHL with ease. He will be a restricted free agent in 2026.
Giles has played a majority of his season with the Charlotte Checkers in the AHL where he has scored seven points (5 G, 2 A). He played nine games with Florida this season and had zero points. Honestly, there’s not a lot of NHL information to go on at this point.
As you can see from Evolving-Hockey’s regularized-adjusted plus-minus chart, Giles was not a super impactful player on a deep Florida team. Given how many games Florida has won this season, it’s hard to see Giles being more impactful with the Sharks.
Giles is 6-foot-5, 218 pounds, which is likely why Grier wanted to take a shot at him. GMMG likes larger players. Oh yeah, and Giles played four seasons with Boston College between 2018 and 2022. He had 45 points in 108 games with the Eagles.
Why did the Sharks trade for Giles?
I don’t pretend to know what the Sharks are thinking but you have to figure that Giles might be a good player to call up after the trade deadline so the Sharks can send other players like Collin Graf back down to the Barracuda. After all, the Barracuda are in a playoff race and could go far with all the top scorers back in the fold. Taking away players like Graf, Jack Thompson, Shakir Mukhamadullin and Jimmy Schuldt likely hasn’t helped the team. The Sharks aren’t winning anything this season, the Barracuda could very well be Calder Cup contenders. You have to think management needs to make this a meaningful season for the players in the AHL while still icing an NHL-ish roster. Giles could fit the role of NHL fill-in.
