SAN JOSE – Alexandar Georgiev, not the red-hot Yaroslav Askarov, will start in net Tuesday when the San Jose Sharks play the NHL-leading Vegas Golden Knights to close out a six-game homestand.
Askarov helped lead the Sharks to wins over the Tampa Bay Lightning last Thursday and the New Jersey Devils on Saturday. He combined to stop 52 of 55 shots, improving his record this season to 3-2-2 with a .923 save percentage.
Georgiev has lost four straight starts, but Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said he didn’t want the veteran goalie to sit for too long.
“We’ve got full confidence in (Georgiev). He’s won a lot of games in this league,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “So we’ve got to get him going again.”
Since being acquired from the Colorado Avalanche on Dec. 9, Georgiev is 1-4-0 with a .869 save percentage. In his last start on Dec. 31 at home against the Philadelphia Flyers, Georgiev made 30 saves, but an all-around subpar performance by the Sharks led to a 4-0 loss at SAP Center.
Since that game, Georgiev, now in his eighth NHL season with a career record of 263-145-93, has put in extra work with Sharks goalie coach Thomas Speer before practices, tinkering with some aspects of his game.
“He’s been very receptive to it,” Warsofsky said of the work Georgiev has done with Speer, “and for a veteran guy that’s been in the league to be OK with some tinkering is positive, and he’s worked really hard in practices, after and before. It’s been good.”
Tuesday’s game, though, is a tough landing spot for Georgiev. The Golden Knights (27-9-3) have won eight of their last nine games and entered Tuesday with a league-leading 57 points and a .731-point percentage.
Still, in the long run, getting Georgiev straightened out will theoretically benefit the Sharks (13-23-6).
Georgiev is a pending unrestricted free agent in the final year of a three-year, $10.2 million contract, and the Sharks might try to flip him to a playoff-contending team before the NHL trade deadline on March 7.
Warsofsky said Georgiev and Askarov will split the team’s upcoming back-to-back games, with the Sharks playing in Utah on Friday and the Minnesota Wild at home on Saturday. But after this week, when the team begins a five-game road trip, nothing is written in stone.
“We’ll see how it kind of plays out. We really don’t have a ballpark,” Warsofsky said of his goalie deployment. “I’d say an even number of starts for each guy. It’s very fluid, to be honest.”
LINEUP CHANGES: Defenseman Shakir Mukhamadullin, a healthy scratch the last two games, will reenter the lineup and be paired with Jan Rutta as the Sharks look for their third straight victory.
Mukhamadullin came out of the lineup after the return of Marc-Edouard Vlasic, who spent the first half of the season as a non-roster player, rehabbing an upper-body injury and improving his conditioning. But Vlasic will sit against the Golden Knights, meaning he won’t have a chance to reach 1,300 games for his career until Saturday at the earliest.
“For a young player, he needs to play,” Warsofsky said of Mukhamadullin. “And it wasn’t like he was really struggling. We need to get him playing here, and with (Vlasic) coming off the injury, (we’re) just kind of (managing) it a little bit.”
Vlasic had 11:56 of ice time against the Lightning in his season debut and 12:41 against the Devils.
“I think he’s been really solid. He stabilized us there a little bit,” Warsofsky said of Vlasic.
STURM UPDATE: Center Nico Sturm will miss his second straight game with a lower-body injury, and it’s unclear how much more time he might have to miss.
Sturm was injured in the Sharks’ game against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Jan. 2 when he blocked a shot from defenseman Darren Raddysh. Warsofsky termed Sturm “day-to-day,” indicating that the injury will not keep him out long-term.
“It’s going to take a little bit of time,” Warsofsky said. “It’s not good enough to get on the ice.”
WALMAN UPDATE: Defenseman Jake Walman, out since before Christmas with a lower-body injury, skated with the team on Tuesday morning and could potentially be an option to rejoin the Sharks lineup for Thursday’s game in Utah, Warsofsky said.
“Definitely (going in the) right direction to join us in the morning skate,” Warsofsky said of Walman, who is slated to practice with the team again Wednesday, giving the Sharks a better idea of how ready he is to play.
Walman was injured in the Sharks’ game against the Edmonton Oilers on Dec. 21, and Tuesday’s game will be the seventh straight he’s missed. In the last six games, the Sharks have a 2-4-0 record and have averaged two goals per game. Walman leads all Sharks defensemen with 25 points in 31 games.
