A plethora of injured San Jose Sharks players did not join the team for their final road trip of the year, ending their respective seasons and for a few of them, likely their tenures with the organization.
Forwards Kevin Labanc, Mike Hoffman, Filip Zadina, and Alexander Barabanov, forward/defenseman Jacob MacDonald, defenseman Jan Rutta, and goalie Mackenzie Blackwood are all injured and did not travel with the team. San Jose faces the Edmonton Oilers tonight and the Calgary Flames on Thursday to close the regular season.
The injuries prompted the Sharks to recall forward Danil Gushchin, defenseman Jack Thompson, and goalie Georgi Romanov from the Barracuda on an emergency loan basis. Gushchin and Thompson will play against the Oilers tonight and Romanov is an option to make his NHL debut on Thursday in Calgary.
Goalie Devin Cooley, a Los Gatos native, will start tonight against the Oilers, who will have three-time Hart Trophy winner Connor McDavid back in the lineup after he missed the last three games with a lower body injury. McDavid is third in the NHL with 130 points, which includes a league-high 99 assists.
Labanc, Rutta, and Blackwood all played in the Sharks’ last game on Saturday at home against the Minnesota Wild.
It wasn’t immediately clear as to when Labanc and Rutta were hurt. Blackwood started Saturday’s game and stopped 32 of 38 shots in San Jose’s 6-5 loss to Minnesota. Sharks coach David Quinn said Blackwood “is battling something. He has for a while, actually,” leading the team to recall Romanov.
Hoffman had played in just one of the Sharks’ last five games before Monday. He returned from a concussion on March 28 after missing eight games. He played in four ensuing games for the Sharks before he again came out of the lineup.
Labanc, Hoffman, Barabanov, and MacDonald are all pending unrestricted free agents, and Zadina is a pending restricted free agent with arbitration rights. Both Rutta, 33, and Blackwood, 27, are signed for one more season.
It seems unlikely the rebuilding Sharks would re-sign the underperforming Labanc, 28, Hoffman, 34, or Barabanov, 29, as they continue to turn over their roster, looking to get younger and in many respects, bigger. All three had disappointing years from a statistical standpoint, combining for just 45 points in 158 games.
The Sharks will have a decision to make on the 24-year-old Zadina, who was hurt before the team’s game against the Calgary Flames last Tuesday and sat out ensuing games against the Seattle Kraken and Wild.
Zadina set a new career high with 13 goals this season while mainly being used as a depth forward. He signed a one-year contract with the Sharks last July as a free agent after he parted ways with the Detroit Red Wings, and his goal total is the third highest among players still on the team.
Zadina also finished with 23 points, one point shy of a career-high, and averaged 13:20 in ice time per game as he saw plenty of time on San Jose’s fourth line. Before his injury, he had just one goal in his last 13 games.
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