San Jose Sharks place center Joel Kellman on injured reserve and recall center Alexander True from San Jose Barracuda
SAN JOSE — The Sharks keep getting younger as the list of players on injured reserve gets longer.
Joel Kellman became the latest player to be added to the team’s injured reserve list, as the Sharks recalled center Alexander True from the Barracuda. The moves came shortly after the Sharks placed Tomas Hertl on long term injured reserve and recalled forward Maxim Letunov.
Both True, 22, and Letunov, 23, will make their respective NHL debuts Tuesday when the Sharks play in Calgary to start a two-game road trip, which ends Thursday in Edmonton.
The Sharks now have four players on IR, including three centers, as captain Logan Couture joined defenseman Dalton Prout on the list with his his ankle fracture. Couture could return by the end of February, but Prout’s status for the rest of this season with his head injury is uncertain.
Hertl will miss the rest of the season and is on long term injured reserve with torn anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his left knee. He was scheduled to have his surgery Monday.
“We’ve talked about young guys coming in and seizing their opportunities,” Sharks interim coach Bob Boughner said. “For me, it’s not coming up and playing one good game. You get that chance, you’ve got to back it up and allow me as the coach to have confidence in you that you’re working on everything that we work on systematically up here, and then we can put you on the ice in those situations.”
Kellman, 25, suffered a lower body injury in the first period of Saturday’s home game with Tampa Bay, as he was hit from behind along the boards by Lightning defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk. He returned to play one shift in the second period, but had to sit out the rest of the game.
Kellman had three points in 17 games with the Sharks, but showed he could be a responsible player on the defensive end and kept his place in the lineup. Boughner said he didn’t believe Kellman’s injury would keep him out long-term, adding, “there’s nothing structurally wrong. More of a bruising situation.
“(Kellman’s) a little bummed out, but the good part about him is he’s not as bad off as the other guys walking around with braces and crutches and everything else,” Boughner said.
True practiced on the Sharks’ third line Monday with wingers Stefan Noesen and Melker Karlsson. Since he signed with the Barracuda in 2017, True has spent all of the last two-plus seasons in the AHL, collecting 108 points in 176 games.
This season, in the second year of the entry-level contract he signed in 2018, True has 11 goals and 25 points in 40 games.
True was thought to have a legitimate chance to make the Sharks’ opening night roster in October after he led the Barracuda with 24 goals and 55 points in 68 regular season games in 2018-19. But True did not have a good training camp, going without a point in three preseason games, and was reassigned to the Barracuda a week before the NHL regular season began.
True said his camp did not go “as well as I had hoped. There were things I still could work on. I didn’t feel like it was my best camp. I didn’t feel like I had the legs in the game, didn’t have much jam in the games I played.”
“With True, he’s a guy that’s been here now for three years,” Boughner said. “He contributed every year, he’s gotten better, to the point where he’s a real trusted player down there. Yes, he came in and he didn’t have the camp he wanted to or we expected, and it hurt him. Put him behind the eight-ball a little bit, sent him down. But he didn’t pout. He’s kept his head up and played well.”
Letunov practiced on the Sharks’ fourth line Monday with Antti Suomela, Marcus Sorensen and Dylan Gambrell.
“I think they’re both coming in with some confidence,” Boughner said of True and Letunov. “In the situation (Tuesday) night, they’re going to be thrown in the fire a little bit. Calgary’s a good team that’s playing well.
“But just staying within themselves is the main thing for me. Against Tampa, we got in a little trouble. Some of our young guys, when something goes wrong, it’s like they’re trying to do everybody else’s job. You’re spinning and you’re turning, you almost have to take a breath and slow down, stop your feet and assess it.”
Boughner said Monday he did not know what forward would be scratched Tuesday.
“There’s going to be a rotation of young guys coming in and out,” Boughner said. “Whoever plays best and whoever deserves to stay in is going to stay in. That’s really where we’re at. I guess you could consider it almost a tryout phase for these guys.”
