SAN JOSE – Whenever Mario Ferraro is not around — or is otherwise just going about his own business – fellow defenseman Henry Thrun notices something different about the San Jose Sharks’ inner sanctum.
“The days that he’s quiet, the locker room tends to be more quiet,” Thrun said of Ferraro. “When he comes in hooting, hollering, and yelling, it lifts everyone up in there. Really, you can’t put a value on it. It’s something that some guys have, some guys don’t.”
“If I came in and tried doing that, it wouldn’t be natural.”
While the Sharks have a handful of pending unrestricted free agents that could be on the move before the NHL trade deadline on March 7, the bigger intrigue is whether general manager Mike Grier will deal Ferraro, the team’s third-longest tenured player.
It might be Grier’s biggest decision over the next week before the deadline.
Going into the Sharks’ game against the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre on Thursday, Ferraro is tied for the Sharks’ lead in shorthanded time on ice, is second in overall ice time, leads the team’s defensemen in hits, and is second in blocked shots.
While the Sharks might be able to have another defenseman fill those roles and take over that ice time at some point in the future, Ferraro’s personality and presence would be hard to replace. In recent seasons, when the mood around the Sharks hasn’t always been upbeat, Ferraro, an alternate captain since the start of the 2021-2022 season, has tried to maintain some positivity.
The cold reality, though, is that Ferraro, a left-shot defenseman, is in the third year of a four-year, $13 million contract that does not have any trade protection. At the end of his current deal, Ferraro, 26, will be an unrestricted free agent and can walk away without the Sharks getting anything in return.
On various trade boards, Ferraro is listed as No. 29 by The Athletic and No. 13 by The Fourth Period.
Of all the players rumored to be on the trade block, Ferraro could bring back the biggest return, and Grier has said the Sharks are still trying to add assets.
That wouldn’t make a Ferraro departure any easier to digest, at least not to Thrun.
“It’d be a huge loss,” Thrun said. “You need guys to fill different roles. There are more vocal guys, there are guys who lead by example and are quieter, and then there’s everyone who falls in between. So, to have someone like Mario, who has been through the NHL and been on more competitive teams, been on teams that have struggled and still shows up to the rink every day with a positive attitude and ready to work and competes as hard as he does night in night out, is really inspiring.
“It’s something that we all learn from, and we can all kind of go as he goes.”
A sequence during Monday’s game against the Winnipeg Jets encapsulated Ferraro’s time in San Jose.
In the second period, Ferraro crossed in front of the Sharks’ net as he skated after Winnipeg Jets forward Kyle Connor. Ferraro kept his eye on the puck as it was dropped back to Mark Scheifele, who rifled a shot that might have resulted in his 32nd goal of the season.
Instead, the puck hit Ferraro in the arm, and for next 45 seconds or so, he skated around in what looked like total agony. Finally, he reached the Sharks’ bench for a change, but only after he broke up a pass inside the San Jose end, possibly preventing another goal.
It wasn’t pretty, and he and the Sharks were far from perfect in a 2-1 overtime loss to the Jets, but it was quintessential Ferraro, his calling card in five-plus seasons in a Sharks uniform: Hustle, block a shot, play hurt.
Ferraro has 731 blocks since the start of the 2019-2020 season, 19th-most among all NHL players in that time.
Thrun also credited veteran and two-time Stanley Cup champion Jan Rutta, someone he was paired with quite a bit as a rookie last season, as another teammate who has tremendously influenced his NHL career. But Thrun said he’s learned a lot from Ferraro on handling things away from the rink.
“With Mar, the thing that I’ve connected most with him is probably off the ice, and just kind of what I’ve learned from in terms of approaching the day-to-day grind and managing the highs and lows and how to be a good teammate, or how to be positive, and just about life in general,” Thrun said. “He’s someone who I consider a good friend and someone that is really, just as a younger player, someone I look up to.
“He’s one of the captains of our team for a reason, and he’s left an impact on me and continues to, and I’m sure he’s done much the same for other guys.”
NOTABLE: Three days after he was injured in a game against the Calgary Flames, Sharks defenseman Timothy Liljegren returned to practice Wednesday in Montreal. Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky told reporters at the Bell Centre that Liljegren, who had to miss Monday’s game, would be a game-time decision to play against the Canadiens. … Forward Nikolai Kovalenko (upper body) rejoined the Sharks for Wednesday’s practice after he stayed back in San Jose for the first two games of the road trip. Kovalenko, who hasn’t played since Jan. 30, practiced in an orange non-contact jersey and remains on injured reserve.