One Year Later: The Henry Thrun Trade

Photo: @HenryThrun

By Thomas Harrington

One year ago today, the Anaheim Ducks traded the rights to defenseman Henry Thrun to the San Jose Sharks for a 2024 third round draft pick. Thrun had informed the Ducks he wasn’t going to sign with them. With Thrun set to become a free agent in August, the Ducks traded him before losing him for nothing.

The Ducks had drafted Thrun in the fourth round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, 101st overall. After being drafted, he attended Harvard University and scored three goals and 21 points in 31 games. The following year, he played in the USHL because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but was back at Harvard for the 2021-2022 season, where he recorded a career-high seven goals and 32 points in 35 games. He followed that up with 31 points in 33 games and was Harvard’s captain. Over those four years, I often had him among Anaheim’s top 10 prospects, usually around eighth or ninth. He never had the elite skill of some of Anaheim’s high end prospects, but was a player who did pretty much everything well and looked like he had an NHL future.

Over the past several years, Anaheim has drafted a number of high end defensive prospects. Since 2019, besides Thrun, the Ducks have drafted Jackson LaCombe, Jamie Drysdale, Olen Zellweger, Pavel Mintyukov, and Tristan Luneau, all who have played NHL games. They’ve also drafted defensemen Ian Moore, Tyson Hinds, and Noah Warren, all of whom could appear in the NHL in the future. With so many other defensive prospects, Thrun made the decision that he wasn’t going to sign with Anaheim and informed them.

After being traded to San Jose, Thrun finished his final year at Harvard and then turned pro. He played in eight games with the Sharks to end the season and recorded a couple of assists. This season, he’s split time between the AHL and NHL. With the Barracuda, he’s played in 18 games and scored a goal and six points. With the Sharks, he’s played in 26 games and scored a goal and four points. Among San Jose’s defensemen, he’s currently third in average ice-time with 19:50 a game.

While it was unfortunate to lose a prospect of Thrun’s quality, getting a third round pick for the former fourth round pick was a nice bit of business by the Ducks. Also, the Sharks will finish near the bottom of the league this year, so the pick should be in the top 70 of the draft. It’s also one of three third round picks the Ducks currently have, so the Ducks could package some of those together to get another second round pick or package it with something else to try and get another first round pick.

A year later, both teams can be pretty happy with this deal. The Sharks got a good, young defenseman who is playing a top four role for them and will likely continue to get better in the years to come. The Ducks were about to lose an asset for nothing and traded that into a top 70 pick at the upcoming draft. I’d say the Sharks come out the winner in this deal overall, but given the situation they were in, the Ducks can be very happy they got a good pick for a prospect who was going to leave as a free agent.

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February 28th, 2024