The Sharks are in a bit of a pickle.

San Jose has several important unrestricted and restricted free agents it wants to bring back, but not a lot of salary-cap space to re-sign everyone.

So, one possible solution is to trade out some salaries to make the numbers work.

One player that could be a casualty is defenseman Brenden Dillon.

The Athletic's Kevin Kurz confirmed an Ottawa Sun report that the Sharks "might be willing to deal" Dillon in order to free up cap space to re-sign captain Joe Pavelski.

Dillon is scheduled to make $3.27 million next season, in the final year of his contract

Dillon has formed a formidable defense with Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, but the Sharks might be able to absorb the loss of Dillon with the emergence of Radim Simek.

[RELATED: DeBoer optimistic Pavelski will re-sign]

The NHL on Saturday set the 2019-20 salary cap at $81.5 million. With $66,657,417 in salary on the books, the Sharks at the moment have $14,842,583 in cap space to try to re-sign their 10 free agents.

Sending out Dillon isn't optimal, but if the Sharks want to keep guys like Pavelski, Timo Meier, Joonas Donskoi and Kevin Labanc, they might have to bite the bullet.