Sharks’ trade acquisition Lorentz won’t match Burns’ play (or beard) but plans to bring intensity

When you’re the player traded for a franchise icon, there’s undoubtedly a little extra pressure to try and emulate the guy.

But for new Sharks forward Steven Lorentz, there’s one way he can already tell people he isn’t going to be like the guy who wore No. 88 in teal.

“I just want to warn you guys right now that I can’t grow as good of a beard as Brent Burns,” Lorentz said on his introductory press call Wednesday.

Lorentz, along with goalie prospect Eetu Makiniemi and a conditional third-round pick in 2023, is joining the Sharks organization from the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for Burns and forward Lane Pederson. It’s the first major move from new general manager Mike Grier, one that leaves little doubt about the direction the franchise is going to take going forward.

It’s a trade that San Jose pulled off with the intention of clearing Burns’ three remaining contract years off its salary sheet, with the Sharks retaining 34% ($2.72 million annually) to get Carolina to agree to the deal.

Lorentz and Makiniemi aren’t considered a highly-touted return, with one hockey analyst at The Athletic calling the duo “a marginal goalie prospect and a spare-part forward.” But that’s not how Sharks general manager Mike Grier sees them.

“We’re extremely happy with the players we did get,” Grier said of the trade and San Jose’s multiple signings on Wednesday. “They’re all high-character kids. Good players, competitive. Leadership qualities. We’re a bigger, faster, harder-to-play-against team today than we were yesterday.”

Makiniemi, 23, was a fourth-round pick in the 2017 NHL Draft out of Finland and only played in his home country until last season, when the Hurricanes signed him to an entry-level deal and brought him to the AHL. There, he went 11-2-1 with a 2.06 goals-against average and a .922 save percentage in 14 games, which included two shutouts.

His acquisition adds another high-level goaltender to the Sharks’ roster, giving them a total of 10 that are either signed or on the reserve list. While there was no movement on Wednesday for any of San Jose’s three NHL-level goalies — James Reimer, Adin Hill and restricted free agent Kaapo Kahkonen — there’s a strong possibility for movement in the days ahead.

The other player acquired in the Burns deal, Lorentz, spent the last two seasons with the Hurricanes at the NHL level, tallying 10 goals and 11 assists in 112 games as a depth forward. The seventh-round pick in 2015 mostly shined at the minor league level before, including a 23-goal, 23-assist campaign with the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers in 61 games in 2019-2020.

Lorentz, 26, said the trade came “out of the blue” for him, but that he’s looking forward to getting an opportunity in a different organization after spending his entire career up until now with Carolina.

“I’m excited for a fresh start and I can’t wait to get down there,” Lorentz said. “I know there’s a good core group of guys there right now. But I know there’s been some frustrations coming in the organization, obviously, with the new GM. It seems to be that they’re going in a direction that I’m excited to be part of.”

Lorentz said he grew up watching Burns play from afar and admiring what he and the Sharks from his era were able to pull off, even if it didn’t result in a Stanley Cup.

“I almost grew up idolizing guys like that. He’s obviously a heck of a player with a storied career. Those sharks legends with Patty Marleau and Joe Thornton, I watched all those guys play growing up,” Lorentz said. “It always seemed like, you turn on the playoffs, late in the playoffs, and the Sharks were there — for a few good years, they had a really good run there. So it hasn’t even really sunk in yet, being a part of a deal like that.”

Now, only Marc-Eduoard Vlasic, Logan Couture and Tomas Hertl remain from those teams that made the Stanley Cup Final in 2016, a type of deep playoff run that seems unlikely to happen in San Jose in the near future. But Lorentz hopes to expand his offensive game more with the Sharks and he knows what he’s already bringing to the table.

“I bring a lot of energy and a lot of tenacity. Playing in Carolina’s system, where I really learned to be an NHL player under Rod Brind’Amour, it was just battle level, intensity and compete,” Lorentz said. “As long as you were doing those three things, it didn’t matter if you made mistakes — you know, mistakes happen in the game of hockey, and, and that’s part of it. But as long as you were working your butt off, and you were going as hard as you could, things would fall into place. And I think I do a good job of doing that night-in and night-out pretty consistently.”