FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – One of the most fascinating things about NHL trades is how former enemies can suddenly be thrown together in the same locker room.
Which is why Kevin Bieksa waiving his no-trade clause to potentially join the San Jose Sharks is such a beautiful thing.*
Both Elliotte Friedman and Bob McKenzie report that Bieksa and the Sharks are a match, with the Vancouver Canucks defenseman willing to waive his no-trade clause for San Jose.*This, again, is fascinating, given what Bieksa said about the Sharks in 2013 during the Stanley Cup Playoffs:
“There's guys on their team, two guys in particular, that are embellishing a lot of calls making it tough on the officials,” Bieksa said. “Couture, you can't go near the guy. He snaps his head back. He flails. You touch him after the whistle, and he's going to jump off the ice and throw himself into the glass. And those are hard calls for the officials to make, and now they're going against us.
“Thornton, another so-called Canadian, supposed to play the game with integrity, gets slashed and takes his glove off and shakes his hand. The referee takes a couple seconds to look at that and make a call, and that's an important part of the game. That's a critical time of the game where we go down two men, and these are two guys that are supposed to be playing the game with integrity.”
Eeeeek.

Now, is was obviously gamesmanship, and we’ll assume bygones are bygones two years later. Either that or Bieska has a perverse sense for the dramatic in his willingness to join a team whose leaders he trolled.
As we said yesterday, he’ll only earn $2.5 million in salary in 2015-16, as his contract was dramatically front-loaded. Bieksa only has one more year on that deal.*