{"id":485634,"date":"2026-03-04T21:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T21:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/485634\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T21:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T21:23:10","slug":"sharks-sign-kiefer-sherwood-to-five-year-extension-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/485634\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharks Sign Kiefer Sherwood To Five-Year Extension \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

2:02 p.m.:\u00a0Per PuckPedia<\/a>, Sherwood\u2019s deal will pay him a $4.5MM base salary and $2.5MM signing bonus in 2026-27 and 2027-28. That drops to $4.15MM and $2MM, respectively, for 2028-29, with his base salary then dropping to $2.4MM and the same $2MM signing bonus for 2029-30. He\u2019ll be paid entirely in base salary $4.2MM, in the final year of the deal. The contract also features gradually decreasing trade protection. He\u2019ll start off with a full no-trade clause in 2026-27 that drops to a 16-team no-trade list in 2027-28, then 13 in 2028-29, 10 in 2029-30, and five in the final year of the deal.<\/p>\n

1:09 p.m.:\u00a0The Sharks have confirmed a five-year, $28.75MM deal for Sherwood.<\/p>\n

12:13 p.m.: Kiefer<\/a> Sherwood<\/a> has gone from a potential trade candidate<\/a> to a top-nine cornerstone, as Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman<\/a> reports the Sharks are close to signing him to a five-year extension worth \u201ca little under\u201d $6MM annually. Chris Johnston of The Athletic adds it\u2019ll be an average annual value of $5.75MM for a total commitment of $28.75MM. The contract also includes signing bonuses and trade protection for the first four seasons, per Frank Seravalli of Victory+<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Sherwood was set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, an undesirable outcome for a still-building Sharks club that paid two second-round picks to acquire<\/a> him from the Canucks less than two months ago. It was either a second trade or an extension for Sherwood, who has evidently chosen the latter after San Jose general manager Mike Grier<\/a>\u00a0stepped up his offer.<\/p>\n

Assuming the extension crosses the finish line, Sherwood will be under contract longer than any other Sharks player. Only\u00a0William Eklund<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Alexander Wennberg<\/a>\u00a0are under contract through as late as 2028-29, and Sherwood\u2019s new deal will carry him through the 2030-31 season. That\u2019s certainly life as a club slowly exiting from a years-long rebuild, still boasting many entry-level contracts and stopgap veterans on short-term commitments. That will obviously change soon when\u00a0Macklin Celebrini<\/a>,\u00a0Will Smith<\/a>, and\u00a0Yaroslav Askarov<\/a>\u00a0become eligible to sign extensions on July 1, though.<\/p>\n

Sherwood\u2019s reward comes on the heels of a two-point outing against the Canadiens last night in a wild 7-5 win, including the game-winning goal (it was one of four shots he had in the game). Those were his first two points as a Shark after going without one through his first four games in San Jose. At the time he was dealt, he was dealing with an upper-body injury and didn\u2019t debut for them until their final game before the Olympic break.<\/p>\n

That brings the 30-year-old up to 18 goals and 25 points in 49 games on the year. It\u2019s an identical point pace and even better goal-scoring pace than last year\u2019s breakout campaign in Vancouver that saw him set the NHL single-season hits record with 462. He\u2019s not checking at that pace this season, but still ranks second in the league with 238 despite the missed time.<\/p>\n

A late bloomer, the Miami-Ohio product made his NHL debut as an undrafted free agent with the Ducks in 2018, but was relegated to a mostly minor-league role for the next few years after a 50-game showing as a rookie. That began to change when he landed with the Predators in free agency in 2022. After hovering around or well above a point per game in the AHL through the early 2020s, he received an extended call-up with the Preds in 2022-23 and put up a 7-6\u201313 scoring line in 32 games in a fourth-line role.<\/p>\n

That earned Sherwood an opening-night spot the following season, and he\u2019s remained in the NHL ever since. Since the beginning of the 2023-24 campaign, Sherwood has a 47-45\u201392 scoring line in 195 games for Nashville, Vancouver, and San Jose with a +5 rating and 934 hits. That\u2019s an average of 20 goals, 39 points, and 393 hits per 82 games.<\/p>\n

The league\u2019s most physical forward by definition, the mild goal-scoring upside he\u2019s flashed in that time makes him an intriguing complementary fit higher in San Jose\u2019s lineup alongside either\u00a0Macklin Celebrini<\/a> or 2025 #2 pick\u00a0Michael Misa<\/a>, quickly emerging as their second-line pivot after a rough start to the campaign. Sherwood is averaging 17:25 of ice time per game in his small sample in San Jose.<\/p>\n

There will be undeniable sticker shock to see a recent breakout talent without a years-long track record of top-nine play this late in his pro career land that combination of length and AAV. It\u2019s simply the reality of a new era of aggressive salary-cap increases. Considering past comparables who signed for similar percentages of the cap, the terms of the deal don\u2019t jump out as overly groundbreaking. AFP Analytics<\/a> projected Sherwood\u2019s extension at five years, with a price tag of $5.75MM annually, which was right on the money.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Bob Frid-Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2:02 p.m.:\u00a0Per PuckPedia, Sherwood\u2019s deal will pay him a $4.5MM base salary and $2.5MM signing bonus in 2026-27…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,6386,30,4,168,405],"class_list":{"0":"post-485634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-kiefer-sherwood","10":"tag-newsstand","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-san-jose-sharks","13":"tag-transactions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116173014152499984","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485634","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=485634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}