SAN JOSE — Goalie Yaroslav Askarov is on track to return from injury and start Wednesday when the San Jose Barracuda, the Sharks’ AHL affiliate, hosts the Ontario Reign at Tech CU Arena.
Askarov, the Sharks’ top goalie prospect, was a full participant in the Barracuda’s practice Tuesday, marking the second straight day he skated with the team.
Askarov hasn’t played since Feb. 19 when he sustained a lower-body injury in the Barracuda’s home game against the Reign. In 19 games with the Barracuda this season, Askarov is 10-7-1 with a .922 save percentage. In 12 games with the Sharks, he was also 4-6-2 with an .896 save percentage.
“He’s a very talented kid. He’s worked hard,” Barracuda coach John McCarthy told Bay Area News Group on Tuesday. “His teammates like him, he’s a likable guy and big for our group.”
Askarov will be a welcome addition to the Barracuda after it was blasted 5-1 in consecutive games at home against the Abbotsford Canucks last week. San Jose is 4-4-3 since the first week of March and is in fifth place in the Pacific Division with 73 points, four points behind both Abbotsford and Coachella Valley, which are tied for third.
“It would be a great opportunity to kind of flush those games and move on at this point in the season,” McCarthy said. “But there were some things that happened in (Saturday’s game) where it was controllable for us to get back in the game, and we felt like we didn’t give ourselves the best chance to do that.
“So, pulled those out, looked at it in the last two days, showed the guys, and worked through it in practice, and now we’re ready to go on a little run.”
The Barracuda should also be bolstered by the arrival of center Patrick Giles and defenseman Luca Cagnoni, who are both available to play on Wednesday. Both practiced with the Barracuda on Tuesday, a day after the Sharks returned them to the AHL.
Cagnoni, who played five games with the Sharks, is fifth among all AHL defensemen with 47 points in 56 games. Giles is a veteran of 187 AHL regular season games and should provide some stability down the middle to the Barracuda.
The top team in the Pacific Division earns a bye for the first round of the playoffs, and the teams that finish second through fourth earn home ice advantage for the best-of-three first-round series.
That would be huge for a Barracuda team that is 20-9-2-2 at home and just 12-14-3-2 on the road.
“If we can get home ice, that would be a pretty successful year, obviously, with the past couple years that they’ve had,” Cagnoni said. “Making the playoffs is the first step, but if we get home ice, its gives us a really good advantage.”
NEW ARRIVAL: Defenseman Axel Landen, a fifth-round draft pick by the Sharks in 2023, arrived in San Jose from Sweden on Tuesday morning and immediately joined the Barracuda’s practice. Landen actually arrived at Tech CU Arena midway through the team’s morning meeting.
The 6-foot-1 Landen, who turned 20 on March 29, just finished his second full season as a professional in Sweden. He had eight points in 45 games for Oskarshamn of HockeyAllsvenskan, the second-highest league in that country, and four games for HV71 Jonkoping of the top-tier Swedish Hockey League.
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McCarthy said Landen will likely not play against the Reign on Wednesday, but might be an option to play at some point on the team’s upcoming road trip, which has games in Colorado on Friday and Saturday and Coachella Valley on Wednesday.
INJURY UPDATES: McCarthy said Barracuda forward and AHL leading scorer Andrew Poturalski is considered week-to-week with a lower-body injury he sustained in San Jose’s March 28 game against Abbotsford. The Barracuda is hopeful Poturalski, who has 73 points in 59 games, can return later this month, with the team’s last regular-season game on April 20 in Calgary. … Center Filip Bystedt (upper body), out since Feb.19, practiced Tuesday. He will not play on Wednesday, McCarthy said, but could return soon.
