Talk about a season to forget.
After leaving last night’s game against the Winnipeg Jets in the third period, Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson was placed on injured reserve this morning. The organization later announced that Karlsson suffered a broken thumb that will require surgery, keeping him out of the lineup for the remainder of the season.
The 2019-20 Sharks are no strangers to injury. Karlsson will join Logan Couture (fractured ankle) and Tomas Hertl (torn ACL and MCL) — as well as Dalton Prout, who has only played in two games for the Sharks this season due to injury — on an Injured Reserve list that just seems to keep growing.
With 40 points (6 goals, 34 assists), Karlsson currently leads the team on offense. Hertl and Couture sit fifth and sixth, respectively, each with 36 points.
If there was any doubt about this being a lost season, it is certainly gone now. A bit of good news in that regard is that the Sharks will now have plenty of LTIR cap space to acquire assets at the deadline, meaning Doug Wilson’s “re-tooling” plan is in a position to succeed.
It has been a season to forget in San Jose.
However, with Hertl and Karlsson shut down for the season, the #Sharks now have over $17M in LTIR space that they can spend.
With so many teams up against the cap, SJ can now take on expiring contracts for teams in need of cap space. https://t.co/63llddw5TR
— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) February 15, 2020
The Sharks will play the Minnesota Wild this afternoon at 2 p.m. PT/5 p.m. ET. Defenseman Jacob Middleton has been called up from the San Jose Barracuda in a corresponding move.
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