San Jose Sharks forced to look in mirror after recent injuries

SAN JOSE – The San Jose Sharks will be without Mikael Granlund for at least the rest of their challenging homestand and possibly longer, leaving the team without two of their top three centermen for an undetermined amount of time. The Sharks — already without Logan Couture, who is considered week-to-week — placed Granlund on injured reserve Friday, one day after he re-aggravated a lower-body ailment in San Jose’s season-opening game against the Vegas Golden Knights. Granlund, who dealt with the injury during training camp, will miss Saturday’s game with the Colorado Avalanche and remain inactive for upcoming games against the Carolina Hurricanes and Boston Bruins, and perhaps beyond.

Most NHL teams, if not all, would be severely affected if they were to miss two top-nine centermen. But that’s especially true for the Sharks, who are still building up their depth at the position from top to bottom. “I think anytime you lose two players in one position, you kind of get a chance to assess where you’re at in that position,” Sharks coach David Quinn said before Saturday’s game.

“and that’s what we’ve done as an organization. ” The Sharks on Saturday recalled Jacob Peterson from the Barracuda of the AHL to take Granlund’s roster spot. He, Tomas Hertl, Thomas Bordeleau, and Nico Sturm were slated to be the four centers lining up against the Avalanche.

Still, along with other positions, the Sharks are going to be challenged to match up with most of their upcoming opponents at the center spot. Carolina, which comes to San Jose on Tuesday, is considered a Stanley Cup contender and Boston, here on Thursday, is still expected to be in the playoff mix despite some key personnel losses, notably Patrice Bergeron, David Krejčí, and Taylor Hall, in the offseason. After Thursday, the Sharks start a five-game road trip, with three of those games coming against playoff teams from last season.

Sturm knows how good it can be, having been a part of an extremely deep forward group when he won the Stanley Cup in 2022 with the Avalanche. “I never came to the rink and if there was a guy hurt and was like, ‘Oh, no, what’s going to happen now?’ Everybody knew exactly who the next man up would be,” Sturm said of that Avs team. “And there was never any doubt of whether that guy could fill that hole or not.

“Obviously, we still have a ways to go to get to that point, to achieve that type of chemistry. (In Colorado), it’s a group that’s been, the core at least, together for a long time. Right now, we obviously have a lot of turnover, a lot of new faces coming in and out, but that’s definitely what we want to build towards.

” Among younger centers, Bordeleau is in his second full season as a pro and the Swedish-born Peterson is in his third in North America. But drafted centermen such as Will Smith, Filip Bystedt, and Cameron Lund might be two or three years away from being full-time NHL players. Sharks forward William Eklund was drafted as a centerman by the Sharks two years ago, but there does not appear to be any plans to move him to the middle anytime soon, or ever, Quinn said.

“When I had Clayton Keller at (Boston University), he was a center and now he’s one of the better left wingers in the league,” Quinn said. “Most great forwards, before they get to this level, were probably centers. I remember coaching in the (AHL) and on the first day I asked how many guys were centers.

I think 12 forwards raised their hands. That’s kind of normal to what (Eklund’s) doing. ” For now, the Sharks are just hoping to get by without Couture and Granlund as they continue to face some of the NHL’s best teams.

Quinn said Couture is getting close to the point where he could start to skate again. Couture, who did not practice with the Sharks during camp, skated twice earlier this month before had what was termed by Quinn as, “a bit of a setback. ” “Colorado doesn’t care that we don’t have Couture and Granlund,” Quinn said.

“They’re not going to take it easy on us. Nobody cares about who’s in and who’s out, who’s injured and who’s not. So, it’s up to the 20 guys that are dressing tonight to be ready to go and do what they’re supposed to do.

” Ozzy Wiesblatt, a 2020 Sharks first-round draft pick who is now with the Barracuda, was given a three-game suspension by the American Hockey League on Saturday for what was termed as interference on a Rockford IceHogs player. The sequence occurred Friday night in a game at Tech CU Arena in San Jose. Wiesblatt missed San Jose’s game vs.

Rockford on Saturday and will also sit for games on Oct. 20 and Oct. 21 at Henderson.

Wiesblatt, 21, had just come onto the ice when he skated into the Rockford zone and leveled IceHogs forward Kale Howarth, who didn’t have the puck. Howarth, listed at 6-foot-5 and 201 pounds, remained down on the ice for several moments before he was helped off. Wiesblatt, at 5-10 and 185 pounds, was given a five-minute major and a match penalty at the 3:12 mark of the second period.

The AHL’s player safety committee met Saturday morning and leveled the suspension on Wiesblatt, who was drafted 31st overall by the Sharks in 2020. The Barracuda were playing their first game of the season. After the incident, the IceHogs scored twice on the ensuing power play, increasing their lead to 4-1.

Rockford scored three more goals in the third period and won the game 7-2. .