The Sharks and center Andrew Poturalski are headed for a mutual contract termination, the club announced Friday (via Curtis Pashelka of the Bay Area News Group). He’s presumably been placed on unconditional waivers today, and the termination can proceed if no one claims him in the next 24 hours.
Poturalski has an opportunity lined up outside North America, the Sharks said, presumably in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League. He told Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now after the season ended that he was frustrated with the lack of NHL opportunities he received in San Jose this year, despite leading the AHL in points, something he’s done three times in the past five seasons. He’ll walk away from the second season of a two-year contract that would have paid him an $800K salary in the NHL and a $500K salary in the minors.
The 31-year-old center has always been a high-end contributor at the AHL level, but after going undrafted, he barely ever got an NHL look. His three games played with the Sharks this season were actually a career high. He’d logged six NHL games entering 2024-25, two each in the 2016-17, 2021-22, and 2023-24 campaigns with the Hurricanes and Kraken.
The 5’10”, 187-lb pivot will thus head overseas, potentially for the remainder of his career, without an NHL goal to his name. He recorded three assists and a minus-six rating in his nine games of NHL action.
In the minors, though, Poturalski has been one of the most dominant players of the last decade. He made his debut with the Charlotte Checkers, then affiliated with Carolina, in the 2015-16 season and has since won two Calder Cups, twice been named a First Team All-Star, and scored the Calder Cup-clinching goal for Charlotte in their 2019 championship win, along with being named playoff MVP. He’s posted a 161-332–493 scoring line in 527 career AHL contests over the last 10 years, including a career-high 30 goals with the San Jose Barracuda this year.
With no NHL future ahead of him this late in his career, he’ll head across the Atlantic in hopes of playing a starring role on championship teams there. He’s likely to land with Avangard Omsk on a two-year deal, Russia’s Match TV reported back in April.
Getting rid of another point scoring machine. And don’t tell me it was AHL hockey! What more did the guy have to prove down there to prove himself? He wasn’t good enough for the worst team in the league? Please tell me how Mike Grier still has a job!
Going out on a limb but I am guessing that you are the first to ever call Andrew Poturalski a point scoring machine. Well done! Some guys simply top out at the minor league level and he seems to be on of them. This machine, as you amusingly called him, has been getting NHL opportunities since 2016 and he never stuck. If he has or had the game, he would have been given time to prove it on an NHL roster. Re Mike Grier: he still has a job because he has been getting rid of bad contracts and dead weight, along with false promises like your favorite minor leaguer. The Sharks haven’t improved massively in the standings yet but they have an exciting young roster that was fun to watch during the second half of the season.
Thinking the same thing myself. The guy’s been lighting up the AHL for nearly a decade now, and these last two seasons, teams going nowhere couldn’t give the guy more than the barest of looks?