{"id":483732,"date":"2026-03-04T00:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T00:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/483732\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T00:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T00:06:15","slug":"san-jose-sharks-mario-ferraro-focuses-on-canadiens-not-nhl-trade-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/483732\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks’ Mario Ferraro focuses on Canadiens, not NHL trade deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE \u2013 Mario Ferraro remembers what the scene was like inside the San Jose Sharks\u2019 dressing room in the fall of 2019 when he was entering his first season<\/a> as a professional hockey player after a memorable college career.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI was the young one in this room,\u201d Ferraro said of his rookie season, when he was teammates with Sharks luminaries<\/a> Joe Thornton,<\/a> Patrick Marleau, Brent Burns, and Logan Couture,<\/a> among others, \u201cand now I feel like I\u2019m the older one in here.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s crazy. Time goes by quick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, after 466 career games<\/a> with the Sharks over seven seasons, Ferraro is in what could be his final week in the organization, with Tuesday\u2019s game against the Montreal Canadiens at SAP Center possibly his last one in teal. The Sharks next play on Friday at home against the St. Louis Blues, seven hours after the NHL trade deadline<\/a> at noon (PST).<\/p>\n

Ferraro, a second-round draft pick<\/a> by San Jose in 2017 and now the Sharks\u2019 longest tenured player, is a pending unrestricted free agent as he and the Sharks have not come to terms on a contract extension.<\/p>\n

If nothing changes before Friday \u2014 and it appears nothing will \u2014 the steady and durable Ferraro could be sent to more of a Stanley Cup-contending team, as he\u2019s in the final year of the four-year, $13 million contract<\/a> he signed in Aug. 2022. The deal does not carry any trade protection.<\/p>\n

Ferraro, 27, has dealt with trade rumors in previous years<\/a> when the Sharks were totally out of the playoff picture<\/a> and general manager Mike Grier was trading away almost every pending UFA he could.<\/p>\n

But with the Sharks in the mix for their first playoff appearance since the spring of 2019, when Ferraro was still at UMass-Amherst, this trade deadline for the Sharks could go in any number of directions, with Grier choosing to sell, add, or stand pat.<\/a> The Sharks have eight pending UFAs on their NHL roster, including four defensemen.<\/p>\n

The Sharks entered Tuesday four points back<\/a> of the Edmonton Oilers for the Western Conference\u2019s second wild card spot, with three games in hand. After a loss to the Calgary Flames last Thursday, the Sharks beat the Oilers and Winnipeg Jets to revitalize their postseason hopes.<\/p>\n

Ferraro said Tuesday morning that he wasn\u2019t thinking that the game against the Canadiens could be his last with the team that drafted him almost a decade ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just focused on the game tonight,\u201d Ferraro said. \u201cSince the season has ramped back up (after) the break. I\u2019m focused on winning as many hockey games as we can, and I\u2019m just happy we were able to string a couple together after the Calgary game.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mindset right now is to get the win tonight and continue to give ourselves a chance to make the playoffs. Whatever happens at the deadline, it happens. It\u2019s part of the game. It\u2019s part of the league. But to be honest, I haven\u2019t thought about it much.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sharks haven\u2019t made the playoffs since Ferraro broke into the NHL. After three years of spinning their wheels<\/a>, the Sharks, under Grier, began a near-total teardown in 2022, sinking to the bottom of the NHL standings as several veterans were shipped out for draft picks and prospects.<\/p>\n

Ferraro\u2019s been the one constant, as he\u2019s been asked to play huge minutes while doing a ton of grunt work, like blocking shots and killing penalties.<\/p>\n

From the start of the 2020-2021 season until last year, Ferraro ranked 45th in the NHL with an average of 21:14 in ice time per game. Since he entered the league, Ferraro, before Tuesday, ranked 17th in the NHL with 878 blocks, and was 13th in total shorthanded time on ice (1,232:09).<\/p>\n

Along the way, Ferraro became one of the team\u2019s leaders, as he was named<\/a> a Sharks alternate captain before the 2021-22 season, even though he was only 23 at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you looked up a definition of a competitor, Mario\u2019s face would be right there, and his name would be right there, because he competes, shift in and shift out,\u201d Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. \u201cHe gives you everything he has. He cares. He\u2019s been a really important piece to getting us out of this funk that we\u2019ve been in the last few years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferraro played in the 2019 NCAA National Championship game with UMass and helped Canada win a gold medal at the 2021 World Championship. It\u2019s out of his control, but he\u2019d love to see the Sharks stay together for the stretch run.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tight group in here,\u201d Ferraro said. \u201cWe all have the same goal. We all have the same vision in mind. But whatever happens, happens. The goal doesn\u2019t change. Whoever comes into this room is going to be brought here for a reason, to accomplish that goal of making the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

NOTABLE<\/p>\n

Forwards Ryan Reaves and Pavol Regenda and defenseman Timothy Liljegren were all slated to be healthy scratches Tuesday, and goalie Alex Nedeljkovic began the game backing up Yaroslav Askarov.<\/p>\n

Reaves and Liljegren have now been scratched for three straight games in a row, and Regenda came out of the lineup in favor of Adam Gaudette, who was set to play his first game since Feb. 4, before the start of the Olympic break. Gaudette had been scratched for the first three post-Olympic break games. Nedeljkovic made 27 saves in the Sharks\u2019 2-1 overtime win over the Jets on Sunday, and is 11-9-2 with a .902 save percentage this season.<\/p>\n

Reaves, Regenda, Liljegren, and Nedeljkovic are all pending UFAs, with Regenda set to become a Group 6 UFA.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2013 Mario Ferraro remembers what the scene was like inside the San Jose Sharks\u2019 dressing room…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5127],"tags":[5,814,21,4,548,519,168,5306,5305,1780],"class_list":{"0":"post-483732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose-sharks","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mario-ferraro","10":"tag-montreal-canadiens","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-nhl-trade-deadline","13":"tag-san-jose","14":"tag-san-jose-sharks","15":"tag-sanjose","16":"tag-sanjosesharks","17":"tag-sharks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116167992132993500","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}