Devils and Sharks make a one for one trade.

We have a trade to report.

The San Jose Sharks have traded defenseman Christian Jaros to the New Jersey Devils in exchange for forward Nick Merkley, giving each player a new home moving forward. In the grand scheme of things this is a relatively minor deal with both men only serving in depth roles when it comes to their time in the National Hockey League, however Merkley is a former first round pick.

Jaros was selected in the fifth round (139th overall) of the 2015 NHL Entry Draft by the Ottawa Senators and now at 25 years of age he has accumulated 83 career games in the NHL. Most of those came with the Senators but he added 7 games to his resume this season with the Sharks picking up a single point, an assist, and finishing the season with a plus minus rating of -4. He played an additional 11 games with the San Jose Barracuda ofthe American Hockey League, picking up another 3 assists and finishing his season there with a plus minus rating of +6.

As mentioned Merkley is a former first round pick (30th overall) and he was selected by the Arizona Coyotes at the 2015 NHL Entry Draft. Despite his first round pedigree he has appeared in just a total of 32 NHL games now at the age of 24 and only 1 of those came with the team that initially drafted him into the league. Merkley has spent the last two seasons of his career with the New Jersey Devils organization splitting time between the American Hockey League and the NHL. This season he had 2 goals and 8 assists for 10 points over 27 NHL games with the Devils, finishing his NHL season with a plus minus rating of -5, and he had 1 goal and 2 assists for 3 points over 5 games with the Binghamton Devils of the AHL where he finished with a plus minus rating of -3 on the season.

Not likely to be a trade that will have a large impact on either team moving forward, but the only one of the day thus far with free agency now just 2 days away.