The San Jose Sharks have added two left-shot defensemen in Nick Leddy and Dmitry Orlov to the organization. The team picked up Leddy off of waivers from the St. Louis Blues and signed Orlov to a two-year contract. Adding the two players offers San Jose a lot of options on defense. For one thing, despite being left-shot defensemen, both players are capable of playing on either side, something that will give the Sharks options when it comes to the team’s lineup next season and fix the lack of depth on the right-side. For another, it gives San Jose a veteran presence that may be necessary if, as has been rumored for several seasons now, the team trades Mario Ferraro. But other than that, what are the Sharks getting in the two defensemen?
Leddy will fill third pairing role for Sharks
Leddy won’t tip the scales for the Sharks, but he should be able to take on some of the minutes that the team doesn’t want to burden the young, learning players with, say Sam Dickinson. The defenseman battled injuries last season and only managed to play 31 games. Still, he averaged 18:40 per game, which will eat up some of those minutes that Cody Ceci and Jake Walman absorbed last season over players like Henry Thrun and Jack Thompson.
That said, the issue is whether Leddy is an upgrade over the defense that the Sharks iced last season and as a third-pairing defenseman, he is an upgrade over a player like Jan Rutta, who played more games for the Sharks, but fewer minutes per game than Leddy.
When you look at the two players regularized-adjusted plus-minus charts at 5-on-5 courtesy of Evolving-Hockey, you can see that not only was Leddy more impactful in generating goals for per 60 minutes, he was also slightly better at limiting the goals against and expected goals against. Leddy is a slight upgrade over Rutta, which may be all Sharks fans are looking for at this point in the rebuild.
The good news is, The Athletic’s Jeremy Rutherford did the research work and looked at Natural Stat Trick to find that Leddy was once for 29 five-on-five goals for and 21 against. A net positive goal differential is ultimately something that will help the Sharks take a step forward.
Orlov offers Sharks a puck-moving option on defense
Admittedly, Orlov played with the Carolina Hurricanes last season, so he had the benefit of playing with a very, very good team. That said, he was a much better defenseman than any of the other players the Sharks iced last season.
Looking at his RAPM last season, at the very, very least, the Sharks will get a player who will keep the puck away from the other team.
And this season wasn’t just a one-off. Orlov has consistently been able to limit the number of shot attempts a team takes while he is on the ice. So even though he’s not able to generate offense (his goals for per 60 minutes isn’t staggering), he is able to limit the opportunities of the other team, something the Sharks could use a lot more of.
Orlov was, admittedly, an overpay at $6.5 million per season, but General Manager Mike Grier kept the term short making the contract perfectly acceptable for the Sharks to sign.
Dmitry Orlov, signed 2x$6.5M by SJ, is a veteran top four puck-moving defenceman who's useful in transition and plays bigger than his 5'11 height. Followed up a strong regular season by getting absolutely lit up in the playoffs. pic.twitter.com/HkDRbPKrta
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) July 3, 2025
As JFresh showed on Twitter, Orlov’s projected wins above replacement is solid, especially if you compare it to Cody Ceci’s, who Orlov would likely be replacing in terms of the lineup. According to JFresh, Ceci’s projected WAR is 5% a far cry from Orlov’s 76%.
So taking in the fact that the Sharks appear to have upgraded on defense by adding both Leddy and Orlov and the fact that the team was involved in a ton of one goal games last season, adding two defensemen with better wins above replacement and goal differentials should help the Sharks win more of those one goal games next season. If all goes to plan, such as Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith taking steps in development, a stronger bottom six and these upgrades on defense, the Sharks should be able to add points in the standings and perhaps not finish in the basement of the NHL this season.
