Ducks trade Thrun, get Harrington off waivers
Weeks after the Ducks were notified that Harvard defenseman Henry Thrun, a fourth-round pick in 2019 draft, was not going to sign an NHL contract with the team, Anaheim on Tuesday made the most of a bad situation and traded his rights to the San Jose Sharks.
In exchange, the Ducks received a third-round pick in the 2024 draft. The expectation is that Thrun will eventually sign with the Sharks after the completion of his collegiate season.
With the deal, Ducks GM Pat Verbeek was able to get an asset back for a player that had decided his NHL future would be elsewhere.
“While we are disappointed Henry chose to not sign with our club, we appreciate being notified of his intentions in advance of him becoming an unrestricted free agent,” Verbeek said in a statement. “We wish him the best of luck in his career.”
The trade gives the Ducks 11 picks in the first three rounds of the next two drafts — two first-round selections, five second-rounders and four more in the third round. In 2023, they will have six selections in the first three rounds — one in the first, three in the second and two in the third.
With the trade deadline approaching Friday, the Ducks have three pending unrestricted free agents — John Klingberg, Dmitry Kulikov and Kevin Shattenkirk — on the blue line and there is a chance that any or all of them could be moved. In anticipation of that, the Ducks made another move Tuesday when they claimed defenseman Scott Harrington off waivers from the New Jersey Devils.
Harrington had just been traded to the Devils from the Sharks in the Timo Meier deal on Sunday. The fact that the Ducks have Harrington, a left-shot defenseman, in the fold gives them an experienced NHL blue-liner to flesh out their roster from now until the end of the season.
Harrington, 29, had seven points (one goal, six assists) in 28 games with the Sharks this season. He has played in 238 NHL games, the bulk of his career coming with the Columbus Blue Jackets (185 regular-season games) and also played briefly in Toronto and Pittsburgh.
The Ducks’ moves were small tweaks around the roster, which is not like a year ago when they made big, bold transactions. They are at a point in their rebuild where they are trying to inch the needle forward. These moves allowed them to do that and more draft capital could be coming their way between now and the deadline Friday.