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San Jose Sharks Announce Multiple Injuries

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The San Jose Sharks are set to begin camp without four notable players. General manager Mike Grier announced that Yaroslav Askarov, Logan Couture, and Shakir Mukhamadullin are out with lower-body injuries, while Marc-Edouard Vlasic is out with an upper-body injury (X Link).

None of the injuries, except for Couture, are expected to be long-term, but they will prohibit each player from joining the team at the beginning of camp. Max Miller of The Hockey News reported today that Couture hasn’t skated since his last game on January 31st, 2024, and isn’t close to resuming on-ice activities. There is little to no chance that Couture will be available to the team at training camp with Miller also reporting Couture is expected to start the year on the team’s injured reserve.

Couture was limited to only six games in the 2023-24 season due to osteitis pubis, joint inflammation that causes considerable pain and swelling in the groin and lower abdomen. It appears to be a question of not when but if Couture can return to his duties in San Jose for the 2024-25 season. He remains the highest-paid player in the organization with three years and $24MM remaining on his contract.

The team’s second highest-paid player, Vlasic, has been relatively healthy throughout his 18-year NHL career but did lose about two weeks of playing time last year in February with an upper-body injury. Vlasic has seen his playing time drop considerably over the previous four seasons after being one of the league’s best shutdown defensemen for over a decade. The acquisitions of Jake Walman and Cody Ceci over the offseason will likely lead to an even further decrease in ice time for the team’s most veteran defensemen.

The injuries to Askarov and Mukhamadullin will delay San Jose’s ability to analyze two of their better prospects heading into the season. Askarov’s success in the AHL is well-known up to this point and he is well-positioned to be the Sharks’ goaltender of the future after being acquired from the Nashville Predators late in the summer.

Mukhamadullin joined the organization in 2023 as a part of the package for Timo Meier. He skated in 55 games last year for the organization’s AHL affiliate in San Jose recording seven goals and 24 points. His size and skating ability on the blue line should make him a popular candidate to make the Sharks defensive core out of camp.

Sharks Sign Aaron Dell, Joey Keane To PTOs

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The San Jose Sharks are adding to their training camp on day two, signing defender Joey Keane and goaltender Aaron Dell to professional try-out agreements.

This deal gives Dell a chance for yet another reunion with the San Jose Sharks. His first NHL games came in San Jose, after working his way up their minor league depth charts as an undrafted free agent. He made his Sharks debut in 2016, serving as the backup to Martin Jones during his prime starting years. Dell flashed bright spots as a rookie, recording an 11-6-1 record and .931 save percentage. He continued to proudly fill San Jose’s backup role through the 2019-20 season but was never able to work into more than 33 games in one season, leading to a move to New Jersey in 2020.

Dell’s production took a major hit when he left San Jose. He’s played in just 23 games since then, recording a measly two wins and .887 save percentage. Not even a return to San Jose in 2022-23 could save Dell’s slide. Now 35, Dell has become a de facto minor leaguer but could make one more lunge toward the NHL lineup on this PTO, joining a Sharks team with shallow goaltending behind star prospect Yaroslav Askarov.

Keane hasn’t achieved the same NHL success, instead spending the majority of his North American career in the AHL. He recorded 83 points across 144 games, including supporting the 2022 Chicago Wolves to a Calder Cup Championship. That production was enough to earn Keane two spot starts in the Carolina Hurricanes lineup, though he wasn’t able to record a point in either outing. Keane has spent the last two seasons with the KHL’s Moscow Spartak, where he’s scored 35 points in 102 games.

Sharks Invite Ivan Lodnia To Training Camp

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  • Free agent winger Ivan Lodnia will attend training camp with the Sharks on a PTO, notes Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News (Twitter link). The 25-year-old played for new San Jose head coach David Warsofsky back with AHL Chicago in 2021-22.  After missing all of 2022-23 with an injury, Lodnia spent last season with ECHL South Carolina, recording 25 points in 30 games.

Avalanche, Canadiens, Flyers, Hurricanes Had Interest In Yaroslav Askarov

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The Avalanche, Canadiens, Flyers, and Hurricanes were the main contenders in trade talks with the Predators for top goaltending prospect Yaroslav Askarov before he was dealt to the Sharks, TSN’s Pierre LeBrun writes for The Athletic.

Sources didn’t divulge details about those teams’ losing offers for the netminder, LeBrun said, but he did mention the Predators are high on Golden Knights 2023 first-rounder David Edstrom, who San Jose picked up in last season’s Tomáš Hertl blockbuster. That was likely the primary factor that led Nashville general manager Barry Trotz to pick the Sharks’ offer over the four others, all of which presumably included a first-round pick to have any degree of seriousness in discussions.

“I think we did a fair deal with San Jose,” Trotz told LeBrun. “In negotiating with [Sharks GM Mike Grier], it was always, ‘Let’s do a good hockey trade.’ You get the best prospect, you’re going to win the trade most times, but I’m really happy to get David Edstrom because we want to continue to add to our center ice. Our scouts really liked him. He was something we really liked at the draft. And getting the pick (Vegas’ 2025 first-round pick), it gives us a lot [of] draft capital now with three first-round picks next year.”

The full trade came across the wire on Aug. 23, just four days after Kevin Weekes of ESPN reported Askarov had submitted a formal trade request. San Jose also acquired forward prospect Nolan Burke and the Avalanche’s 2025 third-round pick, while the Preds also picked up goalie prospect Magnus Chrona in the swap.

But Nashville managed to keep the request under wraps before it leaked to the rest of the hockey world, per LeBrun. Askarov and his agent, Gold Star Hockey’s Dan Milstein, told Trotz in a Zoom meeting on Aug. 2 that he wouldn’t report to training camp if he weren’t moved.

For the four runner-up clubs, it’s easy to see why they had interest. They each have quality goaltending prospects/youngsters in their own right, whether it be Justus Annunen in Colorado, Jacob Fowler in Montreal, Carson Bjarnason in Philadelphia, or Pyotr Kochetkov in Carolina. But aside from the latter, none of them profile as the potential true gamebreaker San Jose now has in Askarov.

The Avs didn’t have their 2025 first-rounder available after trading it to the Flyers for Sean Walker at this year’s deadline, making it hard for them to construct a competitive offer. The Flyers had plenty of first-rounders available – three of them – but they don’t have a low ’A’-tier prospect in their pool that they would have been willing to part with, like Edstrom. The Canes also had draft capital but were likely wary of moving on from their more polished prospects, many of whom they expect will make an NHL impact this season after losing a lot of names to free agency. The Habs have plenty of picks and prospects still stockpiled, but how many were they willing to make available without fully turning the corner in their rebuild?

Shakir Mukhamadullin To Miss The Rookie Faceoff Tournament

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Carolina Hurricanes reporter Walt Ruff tweeted that Carolina had to make a number of roster changes this evening prior to their first game of the Prospect Showcase. The Hurricanes announced that their fifth-round pick this year Justin Poirier, as well as invitees Braydon McCallum and Carter Kowalyk would not play due to injury. No word yet on the specifics of the ailments.

Carolina has added forward Sahil Panwar to the roster for the showcase. The undrafted Panwar is signed by the Canes AHL affiliate the Chicago Wolves for this season and at 22 years old has already played a season of professional hockey in the ECHL. The Mississauga, Ontario native had a solid offensive season with the Cincinnati Cyclones registering 22 goals and 32 assists in 64 games.

In other evening notes:

  • Former Manitoba Moose captain Jimmy Oligny is taking his career overseas as the 31-year-old has signed with HKM Zvolen in Slovakia (as per Tony Androckitis of Inside AHL Hockey). The left-shot defenseman has been with the Moose for the past six seasons and captained the team for the last three years. Oligny was undrafted and has never suited up in an NHL game despite playing 473 career AHL games. The move overseas will be a drastic change for Oligny as he has played his entire professional career in the AHL except for one ECHL game back in 2015-16.
  • Max Miller of The Hockey News is reporting that San Jose Sharks defenseman Shakir Mukhamadullin will miss the remainder of the Rookie Faceoff tournament due to injury. The 22-year-old did not travel with the team for the tournament and has been ruled out with general soreness. The Sharks don’t seem concerned about the issue becoming a problem long-term and fully expect him to be ready for their main training camp. Mukhamadullin dressed in three NHL games last season and is expected to compete for a depth role this coming season.

Alex Stalock Likely To Retire

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Veteran netminder Alex Stalock is joining the Sharks’ television broadcast crew this upcoming season, the team announced (via Max Miller of The Hockey News). The move likely signals the end of his 15-year professional career.

Stalock, who spent last season in the Ducks organization, was a finalist for the Masterton Trophy in 2023 after working his way back into a regular NHL role with the Blackhawks. The 37-year-old’s career nearly came to an end in 2020 after developing myocarditis after contracting COVID-19, causing him to spend all of the 2020-21 campaign on long-term injured reserve. He returned the following season in a depth/minor-league role for the Oilers and Sharks before serving as Chicago’s full-time backup in 2022-23.

The San Jose 2005 fourth-round pick signed a one-year, $800K deal with Anaheim last summer to provide competition to prospect Lukáš Dostál for the backup role, a job that the young Czech won handily in camp. Anaheim waived Stalock to begin the season and assigned him to the AHL’s San Diego Gulls, where he spent most of the campaign aside from a handful of emergency call-ups that didn’t result in any NHL action. He recorded a 3.82 GAA, .888 SV%, and a 2-9-2 record in 15 appearances with San Diego.

Stalock played in parts of 11 NHL seasons with the Sharks, Wild, and Blackhawks from 2010 to 2023. In 179 regular-season games, he held a 70-65-20 record with 11 shutouts, a 2.70 GAA, and a .908 SV%.

He had also had an exemplary career as a minor-league starter, posting a 2.70 GAA, .909 SV%, 12 shutouts, and a 110-87-26 record in 232 AHL games across eight seasons – mostly for the Sharks’ affiliates in San Jose and Worcester.

The St. Paul, Minnesota native also had a spectacular collegiate stint, guiding the University of Minnesota-Duluth to a conference championship in his junior season with a 2.13 GAA, .924 SV%, five shutouts, and a 21-13-8 record in 42 appearances. All of us at PHR wish Stalock the best as he moves up from the ice to the broadcasting booth.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

San Jose Sharks Round Out Athletic Training Staff

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The San Jose Sharks have rounded out their kinesiological staff with the hiring of Will Leonard as head athletic trainer, Ryan Ledwon as assistant athletic trainer, and Patrick Dugan as assistant strength and conditioning coach according to beat reporter Max Miller.

Leonard will take over as the team’s second athletic trainer for the team since the 1997-98 season. The position was previously held by Ray Tufts who was relieved of duties the same day as former-head coach David Quinn on April 24th of this year. Leonard had previously served as the head athletic trainer for the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda before working under Tufts for the last two years with the Sharks as an assistant athletic trainer.

Ledwon and Dugan are rookies to the organization with the former having experience in his role with the AHL’s San Diego Gulls of the Anaheim Ducks organization. Dugan’s new role with the Sharks will be marked as his first position in professional hockey.

[SOURCE LINK]

Snapshots: McCabe, Couture, Shattenkirk, Kaprizov, Sorokin

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The Maple Leafs have begun initial talks with defenseman Jake McCabe on a contract extension, per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet on today’s “32 Thoughts” podcast. He’s entering the final season of a four-year, $16MM deal with a $4MM cap hit, but the Leafs are only on the hook for half of it thanks to the Blackhawks retaining $2MM per season on his deal when they traded him to Toronto before the 2023 trade deadline.

McCabe, 31 in October, has fit in seamlessly on the Toronto blue line, averaging 20:39 per game in his first entire season there last year. It wasn’t quite a career-high in ice time, but it was a career-best year for McCabe in nearly every other category, including goals (8), points (28), rating (+20), and hits (219).

While a passable puck-mover, McCabe is primarily effective as a stay-at-home piece. He averaged 2:12 per game on the penalty kill and kept his head above water in terms of controlling expected goals at even strength, the first time he’s done so in his career after toiling on rebuilders in Buffalo and Chicago. He’ll still feature heavily on a new-look Toronto defense next season featuring Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Chris Tanev.

More from around the league:

  • There’s still uncertainty about Sharks captain Logan Couture’s availability to begin the season, but Friedman said that he doesn’t get the sense Couture is considering hanging up his skates. The 35-year-old played just six games in 2023-24 due to osteitis pubis, a rare type of joint inflammation that causes pain and swelling in the groin and lower abdomen (from the Cleveland Clinic). With three seasons left on his contract at an $8MM cap hit, the 15-year veteran still hopes to be a core piece and guide San Jose’s new crop of young players through their ongoing rebuild.
  • Free agent defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk still fully intends on returning for his 15th NHL season in 2024-25, his agent, George Bazos, tells Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic. Bazos said his camp is in discussions with a few teams regarding his client but didn’t say whether they were regarding guaranteed deals or professional tryout agreements. Shattenkirk, 35, had 24 points in 61 games with the Bruins last season in bottom-pairing minutes after signing a one-year, $1.05MM deal in Boston in free agency.
  • Leon Draisaitl’s recent eight-year mega-deal likely has positive implications for Kirill Kaprizov as he kicks off extension negotiations with the Wild, Friedman posits. Kaprizov’s deal runs for two more seasons, and he isn’t eligible to sign an extension until July 1, 2025, but there’s already a sentiment building around the league that Draisaitl’s $14MM cap hit is a “needle-mover” for contracts handed out to superstars, Friedman said. After winning the Calder Trophy during the shortened 2020-21 season, Kaprizov has emerged as one of the league’s most consistent scorers, topping the 40-goal mark for three years in a row. He’s still owed $17.5MM on the five-year, $45MM deal he signed as a restricted free agent in 2021.
  • An undisclosed injury may have had something to do with Ilya Sorokin’s slight regression in play for the Islanders last season, Friedman said. The 29-year-old netminder still managed to finish eighth in Vezina Trophy voting, but his .908 SV%, 3.01 GAA, and two shutouts were all career-lows. He’s about to kick off the eight-year, $66MM extension he signed to stay on Long Island last summer, and Friedman said whether Sorokin checks in at 100% when training camp begins later this month will be one of the bigger storylines to watch for the Isles.

Filip Zadina Signs In Switzerland

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Former Detroit Red Wings first-round pick Filip Zadina has reportedly signed a deal with Swiss club HC Davos (as per HC Davos X account). The signing ends Zadina’s time in the NHL for now, as inconsistency and inflated expectations have plagued the former sixth-overall pick. It was reported last week that Zadina would sign a PTO with an NHL team, however, his agent poured cold water over those rumors.

Zadina was never able to live up to the expectations of being drafted so high and eventually asked for a fresh start to try and get his career on the rails. Detroit mutually terminated his contract in July 2023 which allowed the 24-year-old to sign with the San Jose Sharks last summer and start with a clean slate. With the Sharks, Zadina posted a career-high 13 goals to go with 10 assists in 72 games, but his overall game wasn’t strong enough to warrant a NHL contract this summer.

Zadina likely could have received an NHL offer through a professional tryout, particularly with some of the teams lacking forward depth, however, he has opted for more certainty and a guarantee in Switzerland. His signing effectively pauses his time in the NHL and could allow him to regain the offensive touch the made him a high draft pick. Davos has historically been a powerhouse in the National League with 31 titles but has struggled as of late finishing sixth last year in the regular season and getting knocked out in the first round of the playoffs.

West Notes: Nabokov, Sumpf, Pilling

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Last season was a banner one for 21-year-old netminder Ilya Nabokov. He took home three pieces of hardware as the Kontinental Hockey League’s Rookie of the Year, Playoff MVP and champion with Metallurg Magnitogorsk. His stellar .930 SV% in 43 games of KHL regular-season action made him the first goalie off the board in this summer’s draft despite his age, going at No. 38 to the Avalanche.

Colorado may have hoped Nabokov, who’s entering the final season of his contract with Metallurg, would be available to them as soon as 2025-26. That seems unlikely, however, as Metallurg general manager Sergei Gomolyako said the team is working on a one-year extension for Nabokov to keep him in Russia for another season (via Evan Rawal of Colorado Hockey Now).

His strong performance in a top professional league so early in his career indicates he’ll likely be an NHL option whenever he comes from his home country. As a player drafted out of a Russian league, the Avalanche hold Nabokov’s signing rights indefinitely. They don’t risk losing him to free agency if they wait too long to sign an entry-level contract.

Other updates from the Western Conference:

  • The Sharks are set to invite a pair of centers to next month’s Rookie Faceoff in Los Angeles on amateur tryouts, Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now reports. The first is 19-year-old German pivot Julius Sumpf, who’s been passed over for selection in the past two NHL drafts. Sumpf, who hails from Munich, came over to North America last season to suit up in junior hockey for the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats. He fit in seamlessly, finishing sixth on the team in scoring with 55 points (21 G, 34 A) in 60 games. He also posted three points in five games for Germany at the 2024 World Juniors, earning some consideration from NHL teams as a potential overage pick earlier this summer, but it didn’t come to fruition. Sumpf has a good two-way game and good size at 6’2″ and 185 lbs, but he’ll likely need to bulk up a bit to make a mark in the pros.
  • Joining Sumpf is 20-year-old Calgary native Nathan Pilling. Pilling, who stands at 6’3″ and 205 lbs, has played a somewhat limited role for the last three years in the Western Hockey League. He split last season between the Edmonton Oil Kings and Seattle Thunderbirds, putting up his best offensive totals yet with 18 goals, 14 assists and 32 points in 56 games. He’s a much lower-ceiling option offensively than Sumpf should he end up parlaying his ATO into an entry-level contract, but he does have a more well-rounded physical game.

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