SAN JOSE — The Sharks will be without Mikael Granlund for a second straight game Wednesday, and there remained no clear indication as to when the team’s leading scorer might be able to return to the lineup.
Granlund was on the ice for the Sharks’ morning skate at their practice facility before their game Wednesday against the Ottawa Senators at SAP Center but did not participate in the team’s line rushes.
Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said Granlund remains day-to-day with an upper-body injury but could not say whether the Finnish-born forward will have to go on injured reserve. Granlund also had to miss the Sharks game on Monday against the Los Angeles Kings.
“He skated today, so (that’s) a positive,” Warsofsky said. “I haven’t got a report of how it went, but (he’s) completely day-to-day right now.”
Granlund, who plays in all situations, has nine goals and a team-leading 24 points in 23 games this season and leads all of the team’s forwards in average time on ice (21:15).
Granlund took an elbow to the head from Dallas defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin late in the third period of the Sharks’ road game against the Stars on Nov. 20 and was later called off the ice and required to enter the NHL’s concussion protocol. Warosfsky, though, wouldn’t confirm whether Granlund’s absence was related to that incident last week.
Granlund returned to play in the Sharks’ ensuing games last week, against the St. Louis Blues on Thursday and the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday, before he had to sit out Monday’s game.
That night, against the Kings, San Jose scored five goals in the third period to earn a 7-2 win. The Sharks improved to 1-1-0 on this homestand, which ends Friday afternoon against the Seattle Kraken.
The Sharks’ top line featured center Macklin Celebrini and wingers William Eklund and Fabian Zetterlund, and the second line had Alexander Wennberg in the middle, with Luke Kunin and Tyler Toffoli on the wings. Against the Kings, Celebrini had two goals and an assist, and Eklund and Will Smith had two assists each.
Before Wednesday, Wennberg was on a team-leading three-game point streak and had 13 points in 24 games, more than half of the 25 points he scored last season in 60 games between the Kraken and New York Rangers.
WARSOFSKY ON ASKAROV: Goalie prospect Yaroslav Askarov was returned to the San Jose Barracuda on Tuesday, but his week-long stint with the Sharks whet the appetite for what might happen in the coming months and years.
In two games with the Sharks, the 22-year-old Askarov went 1-0-1 with a .927 percentage and goals saved above expected per 60 mark of .539, per moneypuck.com. That ranks 13th among the 71 goalies who have played in at least two NHL games this season.
Still, Askarov needs to improve some things, including when and how often he comes out of the net to play the puck.
Warsofsky said Askarov needs to learn “when there’s time to (play the puck), and when there’s times not to do it. … But I’d rather have that than having to really develop that skill set.
“The timing and the speed of the game in the National Hockey League is a lot quicker than the American League. He’s just got to continue to be confident down there, make the big saves when he needs to, and make the easy ones look easy.
“But we were really pleased with what he did in those two games.”
In nine games this season with the Barracuda, Askarov is 6-3-0 with a .939 save percentage and two shutouts. The Barracuda (10-6-0-0), who were carrying three goalies as of Wednesday in Askarov, Georgi Romanov, and Gabriel Carriere, host the Abbotsford Canucks on Friday and Saturday to start a five-game homestand.
LINEUP CHANGES: Forward Klim Kostin will return to the Sharks’ lineup Wednesday, taking the place of Givani Smith, after he was a healthy scratch for Monday’s game. Kostin had been held scoreless in his first 12 games this season but has now dressed for six of the Sharks’ last seven games.
Kostin will start Wednesday’s game on the fourth line with center Ty Dellandrea and Carl Grundstrom.
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NEW DECOR: The Sharks raised a banner with Joe Thornton’s No. 19 into the rafters at SAP Center on Saturday and moved it next to Patrick Marleau’s No. 12 on Monday. Now, replicas of Thornton and Marleau’s banners hang next to each other on a wall inside the Sharks’ practice rink in San Jose.
