Status Signed July 1, 2026 (4yr; full NTC through 2027-28)
The card
All cards →-11.4
Pine Net Rating v0.1: goals above replacement per 82 games (-11.2 over his 81). 10% among 250 defensemen, 3rd pair.
- Position
- D
- Number
- #65
- Shoots
- R
- Age
- 32
- Size
- 6'3", 212 lb
- Ice time
- 22:50 a game
- Games
- 81
- Pieces here
- 30
2025-26 regular season with ANA (previous club): 81 games, 1849 minutes.
2026-27: -8.1 (range -22.4 to +6.2). 2030-31: -10.7 (range -42.0 to +20.6).
- Market value
- $880K
- Cap hit
- $8.25M
- Surplus
- −$7.37M
- Positive value
- 4%
Market value is what the league pays a defenseman at his rating percentile this season, from 214 contracts; in 2026-27 dollars against a $104M ceiling. Positive value is the share of 2,000 simulated futures over his 4 remaining years in which that value meets his cap hit.
The number on each bar is his percentile among league defensemen with 200 or more minutes at 5-on-5 (special teams: 30 or more minutes on the unit); each block prints the size of that group. Higher is better on every bar; chances against are inverted so 90% always reads well.
Sources: NHL.com for the roster, bio and counting line; MoneyPuck for expected goals, on-ice chances, blocks and penalties; PuckPedia and CapWages for the contract. Updated 2026-09-13. The rating, the forecast and the value line are this site's own, from public data, with the method published.
On the record
Called Shots →Doing both the Trouba signing and the Nurse trade is an overcommitment whose bill lands around 2029, right as the title window opens.
With the cap jumping to $104M, UFA defensemen get bid up and cap-dump absorption trades dry up. Priced Trouba around three years, $17M total.
Luca Cagnoni plays fewer than 42 regular-season games for the San Jose Sharks in 2026-27. Scored off his official NHL regular-season games-played total for San Jose only: 41 or fewer is a hit, 42 or more is a miss, including if he reaches 42 after being recalled from the Barracuda, and including if he is traded (games for another club do not count).
Dmitry Orlov records more power-play time on ice than Luca Cagnoni in San Jose's regular-season opener against Florida on October 1, 2026.
Jacob Trouba has the highest shorthanded ice time per game of any San Jose defenseman across the club's first 20 games of 2026-27.
San Jose allows fewer than 3.54 goals per game across the first 20 games of 2026-27, an improvement on the 3.54 it allowed across all 82 games of 2025-26.
Eric Pohlkamp plays 10 or more NHL regular-season games for San Jose in 2026-27.
Luca Cagnoni averages under 0:30 a game of shorthanded time on ice across San Jose's first 20 games of 2026-27.
Keaton Verhoeff does not sign an NHL entry-level contract with San Jose on or before May 31, 2027, and returns to North Dakota for a third college season.
San Jose's penalty kill finishes the 2026-27 regular season ranked higher among the 32 NHL clubs than San Jose's power play.
Sam Dickinson averages more time on ice per game than Darnell Nurse across San Jose's first 20 games of 2026-27.
Yaroslav Askarov finishes the 2026-27 NHL regular season with a save percentage of .900 or better for San Jose.
Two or more San Jose defensemen each record 150:00 or more of power-play time on ice in the 2026-27 NHL regular season.
Written about him
Sam Dickinson Was Better Against The Best Forwards He Faced Than Against The Worst Ones
PuckIQ's WoodMoney model splits even-strength ice time by the quality of the opposition. Sam Dickinson spent 23.2 percent of his against elite forwards last season, against 39.0 percent for Mario Ferraro and 35.3 for Dmitry Orlov, and San Jose outscored the opponent 15 to 11 in those 220.7 minutes. In the 385.1 minutes he played against the softest tier, San Jose was outscored 19 to 12. He is signed at $953,750 on a blue line carrying $17,500,000 of Darnell Nurse and Jacob Trouba.
San Jose Lost Eighty Four Percent Of Its Penalty Kill And Replaced It With Jacob Trouba
Ten San Jose defensemen took a shorthanded shift in 2025-26 and seven of them are now elsewhere, accounting for 693 minutes and 52 seconds of the 822 minutes and 53 seconds the blue line spent killing penalties. Jacob Trouba took 249 minutes and 32 seconds at Anaheim, fifth among all 325 defensemen in the league. Anaheim's penalty kill finished 27th at 76.36 percent. San Jose's finished 26th at 76.42 percent.
Michael Kesselring Went From Seventy Power Play Minutes To Two Seconds In One Season
Michael Kesselring played 69:49 on the power play for Utah in 2024-25 across all 82 games, then two seconds in 34 injury-shortened games for Buffalo. San Jose's blue line gave 82 percent of its power-play minutes to two men last season, Dmitry Orlov and John Klingberg, and Klingberg, a right shot, is gone. The club's roster feed lists four right-shot defensemen and two of them have never played an NHL game. Jacob Trouba, the other one who has, owns one power-play point across his last 158 games. That leaves the Utah season as the only evidence San Jose has that anybody on its right side can do the job.
Sort San Jose's Blue Line By Zone Starts And Sam Dickinson Is At The Bottom
Six defensemen are signed for 2026-27. Ranked by last season's even-strength offensive zone start rate, the least sheltered of them is Sam Dickinson, who was 19 and playing his first NHL season. The four men who actually absorbed San Jose's defensive-zone faceoffs are all off the roster.
Mike Grier Bought The House
A blue-line overhaul was mandatory. Paying the top of the market on double the term was not. Comparable defensemen went for $4M that week and the best one available went for two years, while San Jose committed four.
Jacob Trouba and the reputation premium
What $33 million actually bought, what it didn't, and whether he can still kill a penalty.
