Sharks winger Luke Kunin is on pace to set a new single-season career high in goals scored. He is in his second season as an alternate captain and plays the type of north-south game coach Ryan Warsofsky appreciates.

Those qualities will also likely make Kunin, a pending unrestricted free agent, an attractive trade target among playoff-contending teams early next year.

Kunin scored twice and had 16:31 in ice time for the Sharks on Tuesday in their 3-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. Going into tonight’s date with his hometown St. Louis Blues, Kunin, after 31 games, is now tied for fourth on the team with eight goals, more than halfway past his career high of 15 set during the 2019-20 season when he played in 63 games with the Minnesota Wild.

Now, it’s a matter of whether the Sharks want to try to sign Kunin to a contract extension past this season or trade him for future assets as they did with goalie Mackenzie Blackwood on Monday.

Blackwood was traded to the Colorado Avalanche as part of a deal that netted goalie and pending UFA Alexandar Georgiev, 25-year-old forward Nikolai Kovalenko, and two draft picks. After the deal, Sharks general manager Mike Grier said Blackwood likely “played his way out of here” with the season he was having.

That means the average annual value of Blackwood’s next contract will probably be significantly higher than the $2.35 million on his current deal. The rebuilding Sharks are only willing to commit so much money to the goaltending position as Yaroslav Askarov’s two-year, $4 million contract kicks in next season.

“I hope he gets what he’s looking for,” Grier said of Blackwood. “But I think he kind of played his way out of probably the ballpark figure of what we were looking for, especially with (Askarov) coming up as well.”

It’s fair to suggest that Kunin, who turned 27 on Dec. 4, will be looking for a bump from his current AAV of $2.75 million and perhaps some term beyond one or two years on his next contract. He also must decide whether he wants to remain with the rebuilding Sharks, who appear to be at least a couple of years away from being serious playoff contenders.

With Kunin a pending restricted free agent in June, he and the Sharks came to terms on a one-year, $2.75 million deal that took him to UFA status. He has 12 points this season and is sixth among Sharks forwards in average time on ice (15:05).

Like he will with other pending UFAs before the March 7 trade deadline, Grier must decide whether Kunin fits in with the Sharks in their current state or whether it makes more sense to ship him and collect a future asset.

The Sharks’ other pending UFAs are goalies Georgiev and Vitek Vanecek, forwards Mikael Granlund and Nico Sturm, and defensemen Cody Ceci and Jan Rutta. Those players, too, must decide whether to stay or move on.

Regardless, Kunin, who sustained a torn right ACL in December of 2022 in his first season with the Sharks, appears to be helping his value with his improved skating and production. Kunin had 11 goals and 18 points in 77 games last season.