The San Jose Sharks continued to fortify their blueline on Thursday afternoon, agreeing to terms with defenseman Mario Ferraro on a four-year contract extension.
As per Sharks team policy, the financial terms of the deal, which now ties Ferraro to San Jose through the 2025-26 season, have not been disclosed.
Given that the Sharks had just $2 million in cap space prior to signing Ferraro, though, it’s safe to assume that the average annual value of his new deal lands somewhere in that range, putting the club either right up against the cap ceiling or slightly over it as they embark upon what should be an interesting season, to say the least.
Despite not making headlines with flashy plays or gaudy offensive totals, Ferraro has managed to carve out a decent role for himself in his three seasons with the Sharks, logging the third most career NHL games (180) thus far of any defenseman selected in the 2017 draft, behind only Dallas’ Miro Heiskanen and Buffalo’s Henri Jokiharju.
Throughout a rocky 2021-22 campaign for the Sharks organization on the whole, Ferraro was thrust into a major role in the club’s top-four for the most of it, averaging 23 minutes in ice time per night en route to finishing with two goals and 14 assists for 16 points in 63 games.
Would Ferraro have shouldered such heavy usage in a perfect world? Likely not. But the 23-year-old showed he could at least keep his head above water while handling such vast responsibilities, something which the Sharks’ brass clearly took into account when opting to lock him in for the foreseeable future.
After sending Brent Burns to Carolina earlier this summer, Ferraro now seems poised to assume an equally large role on the Sharks’ blueline for this coming season, perhaps even slotting in on their top pair alongside Erik Karlsson.
