The NHL trade deadline has now come and gone.
The Sharks were fairly active at the deadline, acquiring Gustav Nyquist from the Detroit Red Wings in a sign that they’re “all in”.
The Bruins -- who will look to defeat San Jose for the second time in a span of eight days on Tuesday -- made their biggest move days earlier, acquiring forward Charlie Coyle from the Minnesota Wild.
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Coyle, if you recall, was the centerpiece of the package that the Sharks sent to Minnesota in the trade the brought Brent Burns to San Jose, which makes Tuesday's game a fitting time to look back and ask ourselves: Who won that trade?
Make no mistake: For several years now, it's been obvious that the Sharks got the upper hand in that fateful 2011 swap. But with Coyle now being moved on to Boston, it just cements that fact even further.
First, a brief review: In exchange for Brent Burns and a 2012 second-round pick, the Wild received Coyle, Devin Setoguchi and San Jose's 2011 first-round pick (29th overall) that eventually turned into winger Zack Phillips. Coyle was regarded as the Sharks' top prospect, and Setoguchi was coming off three consecutive 20-goal seasons.
Burns had just completed the best season of his young career, in which he tallied 17 goals and 46 points as a 25-year-old defensemen. He had only one year remaining on his contract, however, prompting the Wild to make a move in part out of fear of losing him for nothing.
San Jose Sharks
There are plenty of statistics useful in illustrating just how decidedly that trade turned out to be in the Sharks' favor, but perhaps none as big and important as this: Of the three players the Wild received in exchange for Burns, none of them are still with Minnesota, while Burns is probably the odds-on favorite to win his second career Norris Trophy award, both with San Jose.
In 479 career games with the Wild, Coyle tallied 91 goals and 151 assists. After scoring 73 combined goals over the three seasons prior to the trade, Setoguchi scored just 32 goals in 117 games for Minnesota, and he's now out of the NHL entirely. Phillips was traded to Boston three years later and never appeared in an NHL game.
Meanwhile, Brent Burns has developed into quite possibly the top two-way defenseman in today's NHL.
In 571 career games with the Sharks, he's totaled 140 goals and 453 points. Burns has been an All-Star three out of the last four seasons, and won the Norris Trophy in 2016-17. In San Jose's come-from-behind victory in Detroit on Sunday, he notched his 70th point of the season in his 63rd game, becoming the fastest NHL defenseman to reach that number since Boston's Ray Bourque in 1993-94.
[RELATED: Where Sharks stand in the West after NHL trade deadline]
Ray Bourque, you say?
See, this Sharks-Wild-Bruins-Burns-Coyle trade really does come full circle on Tuesday.