Peterson, Thrun Making Case To Be on Sharks Next Year

Sheng Peng: Jacob Peterson and Henry Thrun are standing out for the San Jose Sharks right now. That might be important when we’re talking about next year’s Sharks.

Case in point, in the first period of Tuesday’s game against the Avalanche, the San Jose Sharks had an offensive zone draw, and loaded up on offense with Erik Karlsson, Logan Couture, Tomas Hertl…and Peterson and Thrun.

This was noteworthy because Karlsson and Thrun, and Couture and Hertl, don’t usually played together at even strength.

I asked head coach David Quinn about that tactic today, and he said, “You get an opportunity to create some offense, you try to get your five best guys out there, guys that can make plays.”

Now I’m not trying to tell you that Thrun and Peterson are stars like Karlsson, Couture, and Hertl. They’re obviously benefiting from a shallow Sharks roster that traded Timo Meier and has Alexander Barabanov out with injury.

They’re young players with a lot to learn. League-wide, there are questions, long-term, about Thrun’s skating and Peterson’s pace.

But you can’t take away from the case that they’re making for themselves right now to be part of next year’s San Jose Sharks: Peterson has two goals and three assists in six games with the Sharks, and Thrun has averaged over 19 minutes a night in the Sharks’ last three games, top-four minutes on a team that has five points in their last six games.