Aftermath of Hansen-Goldobin trade shows risks of playing it safe

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When the Sharks traded prospect Nikolay Goldobin and a fourth-round pick to the Canucks for Jannik Hansen in February, they thought they were getting a player to put them over the top. 
 
Things didn’t work out entirely as planned, as the Edmonton Oilers eliminated San Jose in the first round, but Hansen was solid enough with seven points in 15 regular season games. He’s struggled to find that form this year.
 
Hansen skated on the third line at Friday’s practice ahead of Saturday’s rematch with his old club, according to The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz, but he’s been surplus to requirements for much of his first full season in San Jose.
 
He was scratched for six consecutive games before re-entering the lineup in Wednesday’s loss to the Lightning, and hasn’t played more than 16 minutes in a game. The latter isn’t much of a concern, as the two-way forward was an acquisition to bolster the team’s depth, but his lone point in eight games this season is. 
 
The Danish forward, then, has been replaceable from night to night, in large part because the Sharks have so many forwards like him. Ryan Carpenter, Barclay Goodrow, and Joel Ward all play the “gritty, versatile” game that drove general manager Doug Wilson to acquire Hansen, and all three have played in Hansen’s absence. 
 
Meanwhile, his counterpart in the trade has also had difficulty cracking the NHL lineup with his new organization, but for vastly different reasons. Goldobin’s offensive ability has never been questioned, but his defensive game has. 
 
“We thought [Goldobin] had an average camp,” Vancouver Canucks general manager Jim Benning told The Province after Goldobin was sent down to their AHL affiliate in Utica. “His three-zone game, his overall game (needs improvement).”
 
So far, the 22-year-old appears to have responded to that message. Ryan Johnson, Vancouver’s director of player development and Utica’s general manager, told Sportsnet 650 this week that he “[sees] the details in his game getting better,” all while Goldobin is ninth in the AHL in scoring with 13 points in 11 games. 
 
It makes one wonder why the Sharks couldn’t have been a little more patient with the former first-round pick. 
 
Goldobin clearly had a long way to go in the eyes of San Jose head coach Peter DeBoer, playing less than 19 minutes combined in two games with the Sharks last season. He may not have been ready to contribute to a team in win-now mode, but his departure left an organization starving for players with offensive upside even hungrier. 
 
Really, the Hansen-Goldobin swap was a neat encapsulation of the skillsets the Sharks value. Two-way responsibility is of the utmost importance, and that’s why San Jose is one of the NHL’s best defensive teams. 
 
But that can come at the expense of high-end skill, and that’s why they’re also one of the league’s lowest-scoring teams hovering around .500. With Goldobin traded, Kevin Labanc in the AHL, and Timo Meier skating in the Sharks’ bottom six, that shouldn’t be a surprise.  
 
When you value safety, you run the risk of failing to stand out. Since the trade, Hansen hasn’t, and neither have the Sharks. 

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