Jacob Trouba is headed to San Jose on a four-year deal that gives the Sharks exactly the kind of right-side defense help they were looking for - and then some.
The team announced Wednesday that the free-agent defenseman signed for an average annual value of $8.25 million. Trouba had just wrapped up a seven-year contract that carried an $8 million AAV before reaching the open market.
At 32, Trouba comes off a strong rebound season with the Anaheim Ducks, where he spent parts of the last two years after being acquired from the New York Rangers midway through the 2024-25 season in a deal that sent Urho Vaakanainen and a fourth-round draft pick the other way. In 2025-26, Trouba posted 10 goals and 35 points, his best offensive season since 2021-22.
Over 13 seasons with the Winnipeg Jets, Rangers and Ducks, he has totaled 84 goals, 274 assists and 701 penalty minutes in 901 games.
The numbers tell a mixed story. Trouba finished the regular season with a 46.15 goals for percentage in five-on-five play, but his possession work was much stronger, with a 52.06 Corsi for percentage and a 50.32 mark in high-danger chances while skating in Ducks coach Joel Quenneville’s up-tempo system.
For San Jose, the fit is obvious in one major respect: the blue line needed another experienced right-shot defender. The Sharks already traded for Michael Kesselring and signed him to a three-year deal worth $4.5 million annually as a bounce-back bet, but the group still lacked veteran help on that side. Trouba fills that void, though the price tag is steep and the term is longer than he likely would have received if he had stayed in Anaheim.
There’s also a roster ripple effect here. San Jose appears to believe Trouba can be more useful moving forward than retaining Mario Ferraro would have been, and the club is banking on his heavy point shot and defensive value holding up with the right partner. That raises the question of who he’ll play with, and whether a mobile defender such as Sam Dickinson could be the answer.
The Sharks also have a wave of younger right-shot defensemen in the pipeline, including first-round picks Keaton Verhoeff and Ryan Lin, along with Eric Pohlkamp, last season’s NCAA Hobey Baker Award finalist at the University of Denver. None of them needs to be rushed. With the top four on defense now set, Pohlkamp could still compete for a third-pairing role with Luca Cagnoni and Shakir Mukhamadullin if Vincent Desharnais leaves.
From Anaheim’s perspective, this wasn’t a simple breakup. The Ducks wanted Trouba back because of how well he clicked with Jackson LaCombe, and they saw that pairing help fuel LaCombe’s rise as their No. 1 defenseman.
Trouba said extension talks “didn’t get very far” at the trade deadline, but Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek kept him around for the playoff push with the plan of trying again after the season.
“No matter how this whole thing, I guess, plays out, that’s something I will always be appreciative of. Pat and the organization kind of took a chance on me when I was down, and I was certainly down,” Trouba said.
“Finishing out that last year (with the Rangers and Ducks) was tough. Coming back this year, I had a lot to prove to myself, and I thought I did a good job of playing hockey again, and I’m pretty proud of that.”
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