My understanding of it, and it is limited, is that in most of these situations a 'group' or 'price' has been agreed upon in principle but due to one club needing to make the move or another, they've decided that they'll pass it through right away.
This typically is a conditional thing such as a pick selection is put up as 'collateral' for lack of a better word, and until then they will scout the prospects/players they have a target on. This is usually for low level prospects/rights to players playing not in the NHL, that the team wants to do a bit more due diligence on. It's most likely that the team receiving 'Future Considerations' is the one initiating the trade, usually to free up a contract spot/move a player due to locker room conflict, yada yada.
The timing of this suggests that the Sharks might be looking at adding a player for a pick coming up, or needing to receive two players in a trade and need the freedom of a contract spot to do it.
But again, my understanding is a bit limited and there may be other factors, but that's my understand as described once in an interview I watched some time ago. (I believe it was an interview with Brian Burke.)
