The last time that a top-five pick was traded, post-Draft lottery, was 2008.<\/p>\n
So chances are, the San Jose Sharks are not dealing the No. 2 pick of the 2026 Draft.<\/p>\n
In 2008, the New York Islanders sent the No. 5 pick to the Toronto Maple Leafs for the No. 7 pick and 2008 third and 2009 second-rounders.<\/p>\n
The Leafs selected defenseman Luke Schenn with the fifth-overall, while the Islanders flipped the seventh-overall to the Nashville Predators for the No. 9 and another second-rounder.<\/p>\n
This fact is striking, because top-five picks were not valued like this pre-2005 salary cap.<\/p>\n
From 1998 to 2004, in every year, a top-five pick, post-Draft lottery, changed hands.<\/p>\n
This recent reticence to deal top-five picks is perhaps some tribute to the importance of cost control in the salary cap era. A young high-level contributor on an entry-level contract, or even a bridge RFA contract, means more bang for the buck, which is paramount to being competitive in the cap era.<\/p>\n
Historically, a top-five pick is more likely to contribute at a high NHL level on his ELC than a non-top five.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s just one idea. Also, high picks across sports are, in general, more valued than they were in say the 1970\u2019s.<\/p>\n
All that said, there have been almost a dozen top-10 picks moved, post-Draft lottery, in the cap era.<\/p>\n
There are, generally, three types of trades, when a top-10 pick is traded.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the full list of cap era top-10 deals, the three types of trades, and what the San Jose Sharks might learn from these moves, leading up to Jun. 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last time that a top-five pick was traded, post-Draft lottery, was 2008. So chances are, the San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5127],"tags":[28189,1503,39813,21431,96,58,766,5,629,2604,597,35,4,519,168,5306,5305,1780,169,3613,27,2566],"class_list":["post-573097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose-sharks","tag-2026-draft","tag-adam-fox","tag-caleb-malhotra","tag-chase-reid","tag-chicago-blackhawks","tag-featured","tag-gavin-mckenna","tag-hockey","tag-ivar-stenberg","tag-luke-schenn","tag-moritz-seider","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sanjose","tag-sanjosesharks","tag-sharks","tag-sjhn","tag-trade","tag-vancouver-canucks","tag-zach-werenski"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116561876282654444","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573097","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=573097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}