San Jose acquired Jannik Hansen from the Vancouver Canucks last night, adding a strong possession player to the roster just before the trade deadline. While it’s not the scoring winger we all saw coming, perhaps Doug Wilson saw an opportunity to improve the overall speed of a team that came ever so close to hoisting the Stanley Cup last summer.
With that in mind, let’s move forward and find a home for Hansen among the Sharks forwards. He’ll certainly slot in amongst the top nine (you come here for the best analysis in the business) and my hunch is Hansen gets a look with Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski before being fed to the middle six.