Trade revisited: As Sharks continue to build, Tomas Hertl nears the Cup

This is what Tomas Hertl had in mind when he agreed to be traded from the rebuilding San Jose Sharks to the contending Vegas Golden Knights a little more than two years ago.

After getting past the first two rounds of the playoffs and completing a four-game sweep of the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference final last week, Hertl, after a decade-long absence, is back in the Stanley Cup Final as the Golden Knights get set to face the Carolina Hurricanes, with Game 1 on Tuesday in Raleigh.

“That was the ultimate, for sure, goal,” Hertl, who played for the Sharks from 2013 to 2024, said last week. “Obviously, nobody can guarantee that you have a chance to win it, or how far you will go.

“It’s funny how times sometimes it works, but definitely that was the ultimate goal, come here and chase the Cup.”

Now it’s a matter of when the Sharks will be able to do the same.

On March 8, 2024, just minutes before the noon (PST) trade deadline, the Sharks sent Hertl, then their No. 1 centerman, plus third-round picks in 2025 and 2027, to Vegas for center prospect David Edstrom and a 2025 first-round pick. The Sharks also agreed to retain 17% of Hertl’s $8.1375 million cap hit through the 2029-30 season.

Hertl, like former Sharks teammates Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson, wanted to play for a Cup contender again and not sit through more rebuilding years after multiple playoff-less seasons in San Jose. Hertl then waived the no-movement clause in his eight-year, $65.1 million contract to join the Sharks’ fiercest rival.

“Tomas got to the point this year where he felt like he’d like a chance to win the Stanley Cup, and I get it. He’s a good player,” Grier said in March 2024. “We’re still in the phase of rebuilding this thing, and we’re years away from being that playoff team that he’s accustomed to, and everyone’s accustomed to.

“I think he came to the conclusion that his timeline of being a productive NHL player probably didn’t match up with the timeline of where the (Sharks were) going.”

“When I got traded, even the neighbors (in San Jose) were like, ‘I’m really happy for you, but really? It has to be Vegas? It couldn’t be (anyone) else?” Hertl said Monday. “Even now I get texts like, ‘I hated Vegas, but I’m cheering for you.’”

But while the Golden Knights, who won the Cup in 2023, lost in the first round in 2024 and in the second round last year, can certainly justify the Hertl trade now, the Sharks — now in a seven-year playoff drought — are still waiting for the deal, and an ensuing one, to pay off. It should be noted that the Sharks finished last in the NHL in 2023-24 without Hertl, giving them the best odds to win the draft lottery and select Macklin Celebrini No. 1 overall.

A few months after the Hertl deal, Grier sent Edstrom and that 2025 first-round pick to the Predators as part of a trade for goalie Yaroslav Askarov, the 11th overall pick in the 2020 draft, who wanted out of Nashville.

Once that trade demand surfaced, Grier, who had been speaking to Predators general manager Barry Trotz about Askarov for about a year, had the necessary assets to outbid any other would-be suitor and complete the deal in August 2024.

“It’s a really big day for our franchise,” Grier said then. “To have an opportunity to add (Askarov) to our group is really exciting. It breathes some more positive energy into the group.”

The 21-year-old Edstrom, who just finished his first year of North American professional hockey, spent all of this past season in the AHL and had 22 points in 53 games for the Milwaukee Admirals. The 2025 first-rounder the Sharks got from Vegas ended up being No. 26 overall. The Predators used the pick to select winger Ryker Lee, now ranked by The Athletic as their second-best prospect.

Askarov, who turns 24 on June 16, just completed an up-and-down first full year in the NHL. He finished the regular season with a record of 21-20-4 in 47 games, but with the Sharks in the playoff hunt, he won just two of his last nine starts, with an .871 save percentage in that time.

The Sharks still believe Askarov can be an unquestioned No. 1 goalie in the NHL. San Jose and Vegas both finished the regular season with 39 wins, but San Jose had 86 points, nine fewer than the Golden Knights, who took nine more games to overtime.

But for the Sharks to get to where the Golden Knights are right now, they’ll need to make several more moves and have Askarov live up to his promise.

“(Askarov) learned a lot,” Grier said in April. “When you’re a goalie, you’re in the spotlight, right? So when you have a bad night or you make a mistake, the whole building sees it. (Whereas) a forward can mess up and turn a puck over and make a big mistake, but maybe the goalie bails him out, or a defenseman bails him out, and no one notices.

“It was a good learning year for (Askarov) as well. Just some internal growth (is needed), but then the main thing for us will be to be a better team defensively and keep the puck out of our net. I think that’s what you see, is teams that are in the playoffs are all for the most part, pretty sound defensively.”

That includes the Golden Knights, who have allowed an average of 2.38 goals – third-fewest among all playoff teams – in 16 postseason games. Hertl has three goals and four assists in the last seven games and has won 32 of 50 faceoffs in the playoffs.

Hertl last played a Cup Final game on June 1, 2016, and it was a disaster. Not only did the then-Sharks forward sustain a series-ending knee injury in Game 2, but he had to watch as the Pittsburgh Penguins scored in overtime to take a 2-0 series lead on their way to hoisting the franchise’s fourth Cup.

Now the Sharks are watching from afar, and Hertl’s back in the final.

“It’s awesome,” Hertl said last week. “Last time, obviously, was 10 years ago. Time flies, but super exciting. I have another chance, but the job is not done yet.”