Tag: afternoon wire

SAN JOSE – Injured San Jose Sharks defensemen Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Shakir Mukhamadullin and goalie Yaroslav Askarov could all begin to skate again soon although questions remain whether any of the three will be ready for the start of the regular season.

Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said Sunday that Vlasic (upper body), Mukhamadullin (lower body), and Askarov (lower body) are all getting closer to skating on their own but will not be practicing with the team right away.

Vlasic, Mukhamadullin and Askarov have been out since the start of training camp on Sept. 19 as the Sharks have tried to remain patient with each player’s recovery.

Still, starting Monday, the Sharks will have just three practices and three games left before Oct. 7, when teams must submit cap-compliant rosters of no more than 23 players to the NHL.

The Sharks’ season-opener is Oct. 10 at home against the St. Louis Blues.

Mukhamadullin and Askarov, both waivers-exempt, could be assigned to the Barracuda once they are healthy. Askarov’s injury would seemingly ensure that the Sharks would start the season with two goalies, Mackenzie Blackwood and Vitek Vanecek.

But if Vlasic has to start the season on injured reserve, that would open up a roster spot for another defenseman.

The Sharks’ top six defensemen are Matt Benning, Cody Ceci, Mario-Ferraro, Jan Rutta, Henry Thrun, and Jake Walman. Jack Thompson, followed by Jimmy Schuldt, Jake Furlong, and Luca Cagnoni, lead the seventh spot competition.

Vlasic is entering his 19th NHL season, all with the Sharks. He was a healthy scratch for several games during the first half of last season but played every game for the team in March and April, scoring five points in 24 games and averaging 16:31 in average ice time.

“He understands what it takes to win in this league,” Warsofsky said of Vlasic, who has played in 1,296 NHL games. “He understands how to win at this league, and the little habits that you have to play with, and those winning habits that we’re trying to integrate with our team, and I think he understands that.”

SAN JOSE – Thomas Bordeleau’s lower-body injury could have a ripple effect throughout the San Jose Sharks’ lineup, particularly in the competition for one of the team’s final few roster spots.

Bordeleau was injured in a Sharks’ practice over the weekend and was, or is, competing to start the season in the NHL, perhaps as a third-line winger. Now he’s considered week-to-week, with the Sharks unsure if he can start the regular season on time.

Who jumps into Bordeleau’s spot, should he have to miss the next couple of weeks, might become one of the bigger storylines in training camp as the Sharks’ preseason continues with Thursday’s game in Anaheim against the Ducks.

On Tuesday, some NHL hopefuls tried to make a case for themselves in what became a 4-3 loss to Anaheim before an announced crowd of 9,462 at SAP Center.

Forward Danil Gushchin scored and added an assist, and veterans Jake Walman and Alexander Wennberg also scored. But the Sharks fell to 0-2-0 in the preseason, thanks mainly to a sloppy second period when San Jose allowed four unanswered goals.

“We’re going to have to peel some scabs back from the last couple of years and understand that to win in this league, you have to do it shift after shift after shift after shift,” Sharks coach Ryan Warosfsky said. “There’s guys in there that have won Stanley Cups and have won a lot of hockey games in this league, and I’m going to rely on those guys quite a bit to drive that home.”

Can Gushchin make a roster push? His offensive talents have never been in question. But can he be responsible on the defensive end?

“Good first period, and just like everyone else, not a good second period,” Warsofsky said of Gushchin. “I thought he bounced back in the third and showed some moments. Another young guy who needs to find his way a little bit, and he has a lot to work on.”

Things figure to get a little tougher from here for all players competing for a spot on the Sharks roster as opposing teams start to dress more NHL regulars in games. Anaheim’s lineup Tuesday mainly featured players who will start the season in the AHL.

Here are three takeaways from Tuesday’s game.

SMITH’S PLAY: Top prospect Will Smith displayed his vision and playmaking ability in the first period, as he set up winger Tyler Toffoli for a quality scoring chance on the power play. Smith finished with over 21 minutes of ice time, had two shots on goal, and won 4 of 8 faceoffs.

“I thought he was pretty good,” Warsofsky said. “He handled some things, he got inside ice, played with some pace. Obviously, there’s some things he needs to work on, but I liked his game tonight.”

Smith’s spot on the 23-man roster seems assured, and his offensive skills figure to land him on the scoresheet at some point here. However, his biggest growth area as an NHL centerman will be in the defensive zone.

Being a Massachusetts native, Smith watched former Boston Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron, one of the best two-way centers in NHL history, play regularly. Being a part of the same agency as Bergeron, the two have also gotten to know each other off the ice.

“We were supposed to get out and golf before I left (the Boston area), but it got a little busy, having to go to the (NHLPA) rookie orientation,” Smith said before Tuesday’s game. “But he said whenever I want to reach out, it’ll be good.”

Having a six-time Selke Trophy winner a phone call away is a pretty valuable resource for an offensive wizard like Smith, who faced questions about his two-way game in his draft year. He also knows it’ll be a work in progress as he starts to compete against some of the best centers in the world, particularly in the Pacific Division.

“(Bergeron) touched on there’s going to be ups and downs — everyone has said that to me — and it’s a tough league for a reason, the best one in the world,” Smith said, “so you’ve got to be there for the ups and the downs.”

IDENTITY PLAY: After Sunday’s 4-2 loss to the Golden Knights, Warsofsky said the team needed to start playing closer to its desired identity: playing with pace and having numbers around the puck all game.

“We want to be on top of the opponent,” Warsofsky said. “We had two or three guys doing it. We didn’t have four or five guys doing it. And we want to play a little bit quicker, coming out of own end a little bit cleaner.”

The Sharks started off well with goals from Gushchin and Wennberg in the first 11:59 of the opening period. Anaheim, though, controlled things in the second period, and some of the Sharks’ defensive breakdowns that bit them Sunday cropped up again Tuesday.

“My biggest takeaway is probably a lot of guys trying to get used to each other and getting used to a new system,” Sharks defenseman Jake Walman said. “It was scrambly at times, but (we’re) trying to kind of set the standard of working hard and skating.”

MAKING A STATEMENT: Just like during Sunday’s game when Givani Smith went after Kaedan Korczak after the Golden Knights defensemen hit Macklin Celebrini, a host of Sharks went at Ducks forward Jansen Harkins, including Barclay Goodrow and Fabian Zetterlund, after he and Smith exchanged cross-checks. Harkins received a penalty, and Smith did not.

That’s a non-negotiable for the Sharks this year. If opposing teams take liberties with the Sharks’ best young players, there has to be a response. No questions asked.

“I think we’ve touched on being connected, and obviously, those guys have my back there,” Smith said. “Feels nice when you’re going out there knowing your two linemates are going to be there for you.”

FIRST ACTION: Goalie Vitek Vanecek played the first half of Tuesday game and stopped 11 of 12 shots. It was a step in the right direction for Vanecek, who had his 2023-24 season end prematurely with a groin injury in February.

“He was outstanding,” Warosfsky said. “I thought he was really good. You could tell he was dialed in from the start, made some big saves. But he looked comfortable, confident. He was good tonight.”

Vanecek said he’ll take as much game action as the Sharks coaches give him to help him prepare for the season.

“February was the last game,” he said, “so it’s a long time.”

Originally Published: September 24, 2024 at 9:38 p.m.

SAN JOSE – San Jose Sharks prospect Will Smith had lunch this week with veteran forwards Logan Couture and Barclay Goodrow, two central players in the team’s last playoff run in 2019.

Smith, naturally, wanted to know what it was like inside SAP Center more than five-plus years ago on the night Goodrow scored a series-clinching overtime goal in Game 7 against the Vegas Golden Knights, capping arguably the wildest game in team history.

“I actually watch it back on YouTube a lot, and seeing the Shark Tank like that is pretty crazy,” Smith said. “They were telling me how it was so loud, it was just ringing the entire time.

“It’s our goal to get it back to that.”

With plenty of renewed enthusiasm following a rather transformative summer, the on-ice part of that long process for the Sharks began Thursday with the first day of the team’s training camp.

New head coach Ryan Warsofsky directed several new players, including top prospects Smith and Macklin Celebrini, through hour-long practices featuring several up-tempo drills.

The overhauled Sharks hope to be a vastly different team than the one that finished last season with an NHL-worst 19-54-9 record, giving them the best chance to draft a potential future franchise cornerstone in Celebrini.

Now, with some more pieces in place, the Sharks feel ready to take a step forward. Certainly, their record could not get much worse.

“I think last year was rock bottom for us as an organization, and now it’s time to start moving forward and pushing things forward,” Sharks general manager Mike Grier said. “Not only myself, but I think the players and everyone’s excited to get going, turn the page and see what this year brings.”

Celebrini, who became the first player drafted No. 1 overall by the Sharks in June, already looked right at home during Thursday’s practice and intrasquad scrimmage, where he scored a couple of pretty goals and was all over the ice.

In one sequence, Celebrini buzzed around the offensive zone before he found a sliver of space in front of the opposing net. A split-second after he took the centering pass from defenseman Gannon Laroque, Celebrini ripped the puck past the glove hand of goalie Georgi Romanov.

“It’s pretty simple. Just get him the puck,” forward Tyler Toffoli said of Celebrini. “Yeah, he was pretty good out there.”

“The more you enjoy something, the more comfortable you are,” Celebrini said. “So enjoy it.”

Celebrini might start the season as the Sharks’ No. 1 center as captain Logan Couture will likely be on injured reserve to begin the year.

Couture, entering his sixth season as the Sharks’ captain, continues to deal with osteitis pubis — inflammation in the joint between the left and right pubic bones.

After missing all of training camp and the Sharks’ first 45 games, Couture last season returned and played in six straight games from Jan. 20-31 before being shelved again. But he hasn’t skated since that Jan. 31 game in Anaheim and still has no timeline for getting back onto the ice.

The Sharks open the season on Oct. 10 at home against the St. Louis Blues.

“I’ve played hockey for 30-plus years, and when it just ends abruptly, it’s difficult, especially when you don’t really have a choice. The body just breaks down,” Couture said Thursday. “But that’s the way professional sports, or sports in general, normally work, not always injuries, sometimes other reasons. But that’s the situation I’m in.”

Couture was one of four injured Sharks players unable to skate Thursday.

Goalie prospect Yaroslav Askarov and defenseman Shakir Mukhamadullin are both out with lower-body injuries, and veteran defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic has an upper-body injury that Warsofsky said occurred during captains skates earlier this month. Warsofsky said those three are considered day-to-day.

The Sharks would appear to be better positioned to absorb Couture’s absence than they were last season.

Celebrini and Smith played center during their standout freshman seasons at Boston University and Boston College, respectively. The Sharks also added Goodrow and Alexander Wennberg this summer and have Mikael Granlund and Nico Sturm back from last season.

The Sharks’ forward group could have as many as seven or eight new players this season, and the defense corps added some needed experience with the acquisitions of Jake Walman and Cody Ceci. Askarov, the Sharks’ hope, will be the goalie of the future.

It all adds up to what the Sharks hope will be the most competitive camp in years, a message Grier relayed to the players on Wednesday.

“It’s about compete and earning your opportunities that maybe somewhat in the past, (there were) guys in the lineup or on the roster that maybe shouldn’t have been,” Grier said. “Now there’s legitimate competition throughout, and there’s no one where we don’t feel like we have to force someone onto the lineup.

“That was kind of the message to the guys, young and old. If you want a spot and you want to earn something, you’ve got to go out there and take it. No one’s going to give it to you anymore.”

The Sharks were in a downward spiral for three years before Grier’s arrival in the summer of 2022, yet the front office at the time was still unwilling to publicly state that they needed to rebuild after a decade and a half of success.

Then Grier arrived, ripped off the band-aid, stripped the roster down to the studs, and endured two of the most painful seasons in franchise history.

But now, with a restocked farm system led by Celebrini, is when all that heartache starts to pay off. Or at least, that’s the hope.

“I think we’re all trying to look forward,” Grier said. “We appreciate what was done here. I think (former Sharks GM) Doug (Wilson) did a great job, and it was something special to be so competitive for such a long time. But now I think it’s our turn and the group’s turn to start writing their own history.”

SAN JOSE – The Sharks’ extreme offseason makeover continued Monday as they signed free agent veteran forwards Tyler Toffoli and Alexander Wennberg to multiyear contracts, adding to an already sizeable group of new players that general manager Mike Grier hopes will make the team more competitive.

“Sometimes it takes some time to do things, and there’s still a lot of work to be done,” Grier, now in his third season, said Monday, the first day of NHL free agency. “But I think now we’re starting to at least head towards being the type of team I would like us to be.”

Toffoli, a winger who has played for seven different teams over the past five seasons, was signed to a four-year, $24 million contract with a full no-movement clause. Considering the Sharks’ prospect pool, led by Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith, Toffoli was interested in coming to San Jose.

“It seems like the team is going in the right direction here,”Toffoli said. “Just excited to be part of the process.”

“Tyler was at the top of our list,” Grier said.

The Sharks then added center Wennberg, 29, to a two-year, $10 million deal that contains a full no-trade clause for the first season.

The 32-year-old Toffoli, a 2014 Stanley Cup champion with the Los Angeles Kings, has scored 260 goals in his 12-year career, including 87 in the last three seasons, despite moving from Calgary to New Jersey to Winnipeg.

Wennberg has 335 points in 712 NHL games and has spent most of his career as a middle-six forward in stints with Columbus, Florida, Seattle, and the New York Rangers.

Both players figure to not only add some badly needed scoring punch to the Sharks, who had the second-fewest goals in the NHL last season with 181, but also provide some insulation to Smith, the fourth-overall selection in 2023, and Celebrini, the top pick this year.

Smith, 19, led all NCAA Division I players in scoring last season with 71 points in 41 games for Boston College and signed with the Sharks in May. Celebrini of Boston University was the Hobey Baker Award winner as college hockey’s top player with 64 points in 38 games.

Those players needed some support after the Sharks finished last season with a 19-54-9 record, missing the playoffs for a fifth straight year. Toffoli and Wennberg, the Sharks envision, should provide some, along with the team’s other veterans.

Toffoli and Wennberg, perhaps not coincidentally, have the same representative as Celebrini in Pat Brisson.

“You can just see how skilled he is and how hard he works,” Toffoli said of Celebrini. “I’ve heard nothing but great things about him, being part of the same agency. It’s an exciting time, and I think that’s also another major reason for me wanting to come here, which was to be able to play with him.”

Celebrini, 18, still hasn’t officially declared whether he’ll turn pro or return to school for a second season. However, the addition of forwards Toffoli and Wennberg would seem to provide the kind of insulation his dad, Dr. Rick Celebrini, a Warriors’ vice president, wanted for his son before he started his NHL career.

Toffoli had a leadership role with the rebuilding Montreal Canadiens three years ago and spent the first three-quarters of this past season with the New Jersey Devils around Luke and Jack Hughes.

“I think for myself, it’s just coming to the rink every day and trying to teach him how to be a pro,” Toffoli said of Celebrini. “It’s not easy coming out of college or junior, turning pro and playing in the NHL. Just working hard every day, and if he sees those habits and he continues to progress, he’s going to be a special player. He already is a special player.”

Often used as a second-line center by Seattle. Wennberg can be seen as an insurance policy for the Sharks if captain Logan Couture cannot return to the lineup full-time next season.

Couture missed the first 55 games of last season as he dealt with a sometimes debilitating groin injury called osteitis pubis. He played in six straight games at the end of January, but his injury returned, and he did not play the rest of the season after the all-star break.

“I think that went into the thinking a little bit, but we’re very hopeful that (Couture) will be able to play and contribute,” Grier said. “It’s a little insurance, sure, but hopefully (Couture) can play.”

The Sharks have made some massive roster changes this week, probably for the better.

Forwards Filip Zadina, Jack Studnicka, Mike Hoffman, Alexander Barabanov, Kevin Labanc, and Ryan Carpenter, defensemen Calen Addison, Jacob MacDonald, Kyle Burroughs, and Nikolai Knyzhov, and goalie Devin Cooley are gone.

Toffoli, Wennberg, Smith, Barclay Goodrow, Ty Dellandrea, Carl Grundstrom, and defenseman Jake Walman are new additions.

SAN JOSE — Following one of the worst seasons in franchise history, David Quinn on Wednesday was fired as coach of the San Jose Sharks.

“After going through our end-of-the-season process of internal meetings and evaluating where our team is at and where we want our group to go, we have made the difficult decision to make a change at the head coach position,” Sharks general manager Mike Grier said in a statement.

“David is a good coach and an even better person. I would like to personally thank him for his hard work over these past two seasons. He and his staff did an admirable job under some difficult circumstances, and I sincerely appreciate how they handled the situation.”

The status of the Sharks’ assistant coaches,

Scott Gordon, Brian Wiseman, Ryan Warsofsky and goaltending coach Thomas Speer, was not immediately clear.

Quinn, who had one year left on his contract, posted a 41-98-25 record in two seasons. The Sharks’ 19-54-9 record this season was the worst in the NHL.

Grier also announced that Ray Tufts, the Sharks’ longtime head athletic trainer, will not return to the team.

“Ray spent more than two decades overseeing the care and well-being of our players,” said Grier.  “We thank him for his service to the organization and our players and wish him and his family the best in the future.”

Please check back for updates to this story. 

SAN JOSE – Devin Cooley nearly earned his first career NHL win for his hometown San Jose Sharks inside the arena he visited dozens of times as a kid.

Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. Nothing has been for the Sharks this season.

The Sharks took a four-goal lead early in the second period, frittered it all away, then saw Seth Jones score at the 18-second mark of overtime to give the Chicago Blackhawks a stunning 5-4 win on Saturday before a sellout crowd of 17,435 at SAP Center.

In 2,749 games as a franchise, including playoffs, the Sharks’ loss on Saturday marked the first time in team history that they led by as many as four goals and still lost.

In a season of excruciating lows for the Sharks (16-46-8), Saturday’s loss had to be the most gutting.

“You can never take your foot off the pedal,” Sharks coach David Quinn said. “I don’t think we did it too much, but enough to get them back in the game.

“Overall, I liked our game. They were opportunistic, and we got a little bit away from what we were doing early in the game to build the lead that we did. But they made plays when they needed to.”

Thomas Bordeleau scored twice in the first period and Fabian Zetterlund had two goals and an assist, but the fragile Sharks’ losing streak now is at seven games as they fell five points back of the Blackhawks (20-46-5) for 31st place in the NHL standings.

“Just need to play 60 minutes the same way, stay aggressive,” Bordeleau said. “We can’t be losing that game.”

It first appeared that Saturday’s game become a rare laugher in the Sharks’ favor.

But after Zetterlund scored his second goal of the game and his 20th of the season, firing a wrist shot past Chicago goalie Petr Mrazek to give San Jose a 4-0 lead at the 1:24 mark of the second period, the Blackhawks started to find their legs.

Ex-Sharks winger Ryan Donato scored his 11th of the season at the 6:45 mark of the second period, and Tyler Johnson added his 16th of the season.

Jones’ fifth goal of the season at the 6:20 mark of the third period cut San Jose’s lead to one — a shot that Cooley wanted back.

“When I get really excited I start to sit back really low and that opens up holes underneath, and so every single day we’ve been working to be more upright and it seals the holes,” Cooley said. “I knew exactly what I needed to do and instead I sat back and it goes right through the arm.”

Phillipp Kurashev then scored with 47 seconds left in the third period to tie the game 4-4, completely demoralizing the Sharks.

No player felt worse about Saturday’s collapse than Cooley, the Los Gatos native who had about dozen family members in attendance.

Cooley made nine saves in the first period but stopped just 17 of 21 shots in the second and third periods. Jones’ game-winner came on the first shot in overtime.

“The team was dialed in. I thought they played amazing,” said Cooley, who was making his second career NHL start, “and I just couldn’t make the saves I needed to.”

Cooley, 26, a Los Gatos native, became the first individual from Santa Clara County to play for the Sharks when he started for San Jose last Sunday in Chicago. He made 26 saves in what turned into a 5-2 Blackhawks win.

After Saturday, his future with the Sharks is cloudy at best. The team, now with 12 games left, might also want to get a look at another goalie in the system, perhaps Eetu Makiniemi with the Barracuda to back up Mackenzie Blackwood, who will almost certainly start Tuesday’s home game against the Dallas Stars.

Cooley needs a contract for next season, and it might not come from the Sharks who already have Blackwood, Vitek Vanacek, Magnus Chrona and Georgi Romanov locked up. Makiniemi, who came to San Jose in 2022 in the trade that saw Brent Burns go to the Carolina Hurricanes, is a restricted free agent.

The San Jose Sharks faced some headwinds in their game against the Minnesota Wild on Sunday night.

The Sharks were playing their second game in as many nights — just like the Wild were — but were also dealing with an illness now running through the locker room, sapping some of the team’s energy.

The biggest obstacle, though, was the play of Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov, who recorded his third hat trick of the season to help hand the Sharks a disappointing 4-3 loss at Xcel Energy Center.

With the Sharks leading 3-2, Kaprizov scored at the 2:38 and 16:01 mark of the third period, with the second goal completing the hat trick and putting the Wild ahead to stay as San Jose was sent to its seventh straight loss.

“When you don’t have it, you’ve got to find a way to hang around and I thought that’s what we did,” Sharks coach David Quinn said. “It was just unfortunate. They’ve got Kaprizov and we don’t.”

Anthony Duclair, Mikael Granlund, and Nico Sturm all scored for the Sharks (15-39-6), who managed just 15 shots on net as they completed a two-game road trip with a 0-1-1 record.

The Sharks led the Wild on two occasions Sunday, including in the third period as the two teams traded goals.

After Duclair scored his 14th of the season 23 seconds in for a 3-2 Sharks lead, Kaprizov tied it, one-timing a pass from Matt Boldy past goalie Kaapo Kahkonen, who made 28 saves for the game.

Kaprizov’s third goal of the game was also his 29th goal of the season, as he became the fifth-fastest active player to 300 career points. Having now played 258 games, he’s behind only Sidney Crosby (219), Alex Ovechkin (237), Connor McDavid (240) and Evgeni Malkin (240).

“He’s a phenomenal player,” Sturm said of Kaprizov, his one-time Wild teammate. “That third goal, that’s him. He gets lost as the third guy high, there’s a puck battle, and he’s got the smarts to where he just waits for the puck to squirt out to him.”

The Sharks now start a three-game homestand on Tuesday against the Dallas Stars.

The Sharks were without center William Eklund, who came down with an illness Sunday. With Eklund unavailable, Kevin Labanc drew back into the lineup after he was a healthy scratch Saturday in Dallas and Luke Kunin moved into Eklund’s role as the Sharks’ second-line center.

Eklund had goals in each of the last two Sharks’ games and for the season has 10 goals and 27 points in 58 games.

Sunday’s game was Kahkonen’s first against his former team. He was drafted by the Wild in 2014 in the fourth round and played three-plus seasons in the organization before he was acquired by the Sharks two years ago for defenseman Jacob Middleton.