Sharks qualify RFAs Meier, Labanc, but let defenseman walk

SAN JOSE — The Sharks issued qualifying offers to restricted free agent forwards Timo Meier, Kevin Labanc and Dylan Gambrell but not to defenseman Joakim Ryan, who now becomes an unrestricted free agent.

NHL teams had until Tuesday at 2 p.m. (PDT) to issue qualifying offers to RFAs and retain their negotiating rights. Other players to receive qualifying offers were forwards Maxim Letunov and Antti Suomela and defensemen Nick DeSimone and Kyle Wood.

Other players who were not qualified were forwards Rourke Chartier, Jon Martin and Alex Schoenborn and defensemen Cody Donaghey, Cavan Fitzgerald and Michael Brodzinski. Of that group, only Chartier had played in the NHL, dressing for 13 Sharks games early in the 2018-19 season.

Ryan, who turned 26 on June 17 and had arbitration rights, had seven assists in 44 regular season games with the Sharks this season, as he was supplanted as Brent Burns’ defense partner after the emergence of the more physical Radim Simek in early December.

Ryan then largely served as a scratch for the next three months until Simek suffered torn knee ligaments in a March 12 game against Winnipeg. Ryan played most of the rest of the regular season and all 20 of the Sharks’ playoff games, although he averaged just 8 minutes and 41 seconds of ice time in the postseason.

This does not necessarily close the book on Ryan, who was drafted by San Jose in 2012 and has played 106 games with the team over two years, re-signing with the Sharks, although San Jose already has Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Brenden Dillon, Simek and Jacob Middleton on the left side.

Last June, the Sharks did not qualify a restricted free agent defenseman Dylan DeMelo. But less than three weeks later, DeMelo and the Sharks agreed to a two-year deal. DeMelo was part of the package the Sharks sent to Ottawa in September in the deal that brought Erik Karlsson to San Jose.

The bigger question is how the Sharks plan to proceed with Meier and Labanc, their two most high-profile RFAs.

Ideally, from a team standpoint, the Sharks would be able to sign both players to two- or three-year bridge contracts with reasonable average annual values.

The Sharks, according to CapFriendly, have roughly $14.8 million in space left under the 2019-20 NHL salary cap of $81.5 million. They have seven forwards, five defensemen and two goalies on one-way contacts.

In 2016 when Tomas Hertl was an RFA, the Sharks were able to sign him to a team-friendly two-year, $6 million deal with the promise of a larger payday ahead. Hertl then signed a four-year, $22.5 million contract extension last summer.

“We historically have had players who have benefitted playing with really good players who understand to keep a group together, we’ve done bridge contracts,” Sharks general manager Doug Wilson said last month when asked about a new deal for Meier. “Timo certainly understands how everybody’s been treated, and we’ll treat him well. Keeping everyone together is a challenge of our cap system.

“But I think it’s one of the reasons why we’re so loyal to our own players and young guys who have come up through the system is they know how we try to treat them.”

This is a unique year, of course, with Meier among a stellar crop of RFAs.

Those needing new deals include Carolina’s Sebastian Aho, Calgary’s Matthew Tkachuk, Tampa Bay’s Brayden Point, Toronto’s Mitchell Marner and Colorado’s Mikko Rantanen.

Aho, Rantanen and Marner were in Meier’s 2015 draft class, and have piled up significantly more points since they entered the NHL. Meier, though, is coming off a impressive 30-goal, 36-assist season, tied for third most on the Sharks and 39th in the NHL with Patrik Laine, another high-profile RFA, and Aho, among others. He’s only 22. .

In December, Bay Area News Group’s Paul Gackle noted that if Meier hit the 60 or 70-point mark, it would “probably bump him into the $7 million conversation” for an AAV of a new deal, just ahead of the contract that William Nylander had signed around that time.

Whoever signs first among that group of RFAs might help set the market for the others. Question is, who will want to sign first?

A new deal for Labanc figures to be less expensive than the one Meier will likely sign, although he is coming off an impressive season in his own right with 17 goals and 39 assists in 56 games.