Injury update: Logan Couture nearing return, Marc-Edouard Vlasic won't travel with team
So there's good news and there's bad news.
The Sharks have been bitten by the injury bug pretty ferociously this year and no infection has been as devastating to San Jose than the freak injury to Logan Couture. It appears the Sharks may be getting back one of their top forwards while top defender Marc-Edouard Vlasic isn't quite ready to return.
Sharks Insider and Friend of the Blog Kevin Kurz has the latest on Couture and Vlasic. He was taken off of injured reserve but head coach Peter DeBoer was hesitant to confirm the forward's return. From Kurz's article:
"I haven’t made that decision yet. He’s off IR because he’s available to us," DeBoer said after practice. "We’re in a back-to-back situation. I want to see how he feels after today and talk to him tomorrow morning. There’s a lot of factors that go into that. The good news is that he is available to us, and then we’ll decide where and when he’s going to play."
Kurz thinks he'll be good to go tomorrow, and I tend to lean the same way. As for Vlasic, the news isn't quite so good (though it's not that bad, either). The defender didn't skate on Monday and will miss the two-game road trip. DeBoer doesn't seem to think it'll be a long term problem.
The Sharks lost 49 man games to injury as of December 5. They're 16th in the league in impact to corsi based on man games lost.