With the Expansion Draft behind us, San Jose Sharks general manager Doug Wilson checked off two players due new contracts earlier today, re-signing forwards Rudolfs Balcers and Joachim Blichfeld.
Balcers, a 24-year-old winger, was signed to a two-year deal with an annual cap hit of $1.55 million. In real dollars, the contract is slightly backloaded, broken up to $1.25 million this year and $1.85 million in the 2022-23 season, per CapFriendly. He will be a restricted free agent in 2023.
The Sharks drafted Balcers in the fifth round of the 2015 NHL Entry Draft (142 overall) out of Norway’s top men’s league, where he put up 8 goals and 13 assists in 31 games as a teenage rookie and the team’s youngest player.