Deep Blue Sea: Erik Karlsson has arrived

It’s been a long three days of other teams coming back for the preseason, while we’ve not only had to wait until Sharks hockey came back, but until Erik Karlsson finally made his way to San Jose.

We wait no more, Sharks fans.

Not only is Sharks hockey back tonight, where a blended team of prospects and rostered players will take on the Anaheim Ducks, but by the time this posts in the morning, Erik Karlsson should have landed in his new home of San Jose. He posted this to Instagram late last night:

Let’s break this down: he had a Shark-themed going away party in which there was both a mini Shark head cake AND his friends wore Shark heads. He also changed his social media bios to reflect his new employer.

Do you think he’s excited, or nah?

It seems unlikely that he’ll suit up for tonight’s game, but that’s not gonna keep any of us from hoping that we finally get to see our favorite Swede (no offense, Tim Heed) in the best jersey in the league some time today.

In the meantime, here are yesterday’s scores, and news from around the league:

• The Nashville Predators and Florida Panthers had a split-squad game, with Nashville scoring 5 goals and winning in each of them. Here’s a game thread from Litter Box Cats.
• Former Shark Daniel O’Regan and the Buffalo Sabres took on the Columbus Blue Jackets, beating them 4-1. Here’s the recap from The Cannon and from Die By the Blade.
• It was a whole lot of Gostisbehere when the Philadelphia Flyers beat Lou’s new New York Islanders 3-1. Read about it on Broad Street Hockey or over on Lighthouse Hockey.
• Goaltender Laurent Brossoit was the star of the game, making 39 saves to lead the Winnipeg Jets to a 2-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild. Here’s Arctic Ice Hockey’s game thread.
• The New Jersey Devils had split squad games, losing 4-3 to the New York Rangers in overtime and 3-1 to the Montreal Canadiens. All About the Jersey wasn’t too impressed. Blueshirt Banter and Eyes on the Prize were pretty happy, though.
• Finally, things got wild in a 7-4 win for the Edmonton Oilers over the Calgary Flames (spoiler: Kailer Yamamoto is good at hockey). The Copper & Blue posted a gamethread and Matchsticks and Gasoline made a few observations.
• If you want to think about who still hasn’t put pen to paper as we head into the preseason, here’s a list of players still available, by position.
• Is it too soon to start worrying about a lockout? Yahoo Sports doesn’t think so.
• Read more about the NHL’s outreach into China, as they continue to host preseason games.
• The Panthers named a new captain yesterday. Congratulations to Alexander Barkov!
• Seattle is pushing for an NHL team, but they’ve still got some hurdles to jump over.

Sit back, catch up on all of yesterday’s action, and be alert for any sightings of a certain defenseman wearing teal.