After a disappointing 5-1 loss, the San Jose Sharks are going back to the drawing board at their latest practice.
Timothy Liljegren and John Klingberg were not on the ice during practice on Wednesday. Liljegren suffered an upper-body injury, and Klingberg sustained a lower-body injury. Both injuries happened during Tuesday’s game.
“They’re still being evaluated,” San Jose Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said about the defensemen’s status for Friday’s game against the Utah Mammoth.
Warsofsky did confirm that Klingberg’s injury isn’t related to his hips. Klingberg has missed extended time with injuries to his hips.
The Sharks also changed up their forward lines for the second straight practice. Collin Graf appears to be re-entering the lineup in place of Ryan Reaves. Will Smith will be on the same line as Graf, with Michael Misa playing center.
Ty Dellandrea will go back to playing center on the Sharks’ fourth line with Adam Gaudette and Barclay Goodrow.
“There are some analytics involved. There are match-up-based decisions and observations of who we’re playing and what matchups we may want,” Warsofsky said about his latest line combinations. “There’s chemistry involved. Some guys who are going, and some who aren’t. There’s probably 10 layers of that.”
Due to Klingberg and Liljegren’s injuries, Vincent Desharnais might make his season debut for the Sharks. He was paired with Sam Dickinson during Wednesday’s practice and much of the Sharks’ training camp.
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