SAN JOSE – Alexander Barabanov’s season and his San Jose Sharks career appear to be over as there remains no sign of the injured winger getting back on the ice with less than two weeks left in the regular season.
Barabanov was injured blocking a shot in the Sharks’ game against the Dallas Stars on March 26. He was seen in a protective walking boot after the game and two days later, Sharks coach David Quinn announced that Barabanov was week to week.
Quinn agreed the odds are against injury-riddled Barabanov, who had 13 points in just 46 games this season, from returning this month. The Sharks’ season ends on April 18 with a game in Calgary against the Flames.
Barabanov, who turns 30 in June, had 48 points in 67 games with the Sharks last season.
“We missed him for sure,” Quinn said Sunday before the Sharks played the Arizona Coyotes. “He’s a guy that we had last year and was a good player for us. Just seemed like right from the get-go, anytime things started going well for him, he got hurt.
“Unfortunately, that’s sports. That can happen. It can happen to anybody and this happens to be the year it happens to him. Unfortunately, it’s happened to a few too many guys for us this year.”
The Sharks are in a rebuild with more roster turnover all but assured. If Barabanov, a pending unrestricted free agent, does not return to San Jose next season, he will finish his four-year Sharks tenure with 106 points in 193 games since April 26, 2021. That makes him the fifth-highest scoring Sharks in that time, behind Tomas Hertl (174), Erik Karlsson (140), Timo Meier (132), and Logan Couture (128).
Barabanov first came to the Sharks on April 12, 2021, in a trade with Toronto that sent forward Antti Suomela to the Maple Leafs.
Barabanov appeared to be on his way out of San Jose before the NHL trade deadline on March 8 as he was held out of the Sharks’ lineup for a game the night before against the New York Islanders.
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However, with the Sharks retaining salary in the trade that saw Tomas Hertl go to the Vegas Golden Knights, the team was unable to keep any money on their books for any other deals. That may have caused a Barabanov trade to the New York Rangers to fall through.
NHL teams are only allowed to retain salary on three players, and the Sharks already had two of those spots taken up in the trades that saw Brent Burns go to the Carolina Hurricanes in 2022 and Karlsson go to the Pittsburgh Penguins last year.