The San Jose Sharks finished up the preseason schedule on Saturday night against the Utah Mammoth in Salt Lake City, and for most of the first period, it looked like they really didn’t want to be there.
The Sharks allowed four goals on seven shots in the first period and trailed by three before Tyler Toffoli, Barclay Goodrow, and Will Smith all scored in the second period, with Smith’s power play goal tying the game at the 13:39 mark.
The Sharks, though, could not slow down the Mammoth in the third period, allowing goals to Clayton Keller and Brandon Tanev in a 6-4 loss at the Delta Center.
The Sharks were outshot 11-3 in the third period, and starting goalie Yaroslav Askarov stopped 17 of 23 shots.
The Sharks dressed mostly an NHL-caliber lineup in their final tune-up before the start of the regular season on Thursday at home against the Vegas Golden Knights.
Saturday’s lineup included center Macklin Celebrini, who made his preseason debut after he was unable to play in the Sharks’ first five exhibition games as he recovered from an undisclosed ailment that he sustained at the start of training camp.
“I think as the game went on, I got more comfortable,” Celebrini said. “It was good to just kind of get out there with our systems and with the guys, and kind of just work through some stuff.”
Celebrini, who led the Sharks with 63 points in 70 games last season, started Saturday’s game on a line with Will Smith and Philipp Kurashev. Celebrini and Smith were on the same line for several games last year and lined up with Kurashev during a recent practice.
The Sharks signed the versatile Kurashev to a one-year, $1.2 million contract on July 1 after he had 130 points in 317 games over five seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks.
“It’s going to take some time to kind of get used to playing with each other,” Celebrini said. “It’s going to take a couple of games, but I thought we did some really good things.”
Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said he was going to monitor Celebrini’s ice time as he played his first game since May, when he was with Team Canada at the IIHF World Championship in Europe. Up until Wednesday of this week, Celebrini had been held out of contact drills.
Celebrini had three hits and won seven of 17 faceoffs in 20:52 of ice time.
“We have a pretty good plan of where we want him to finish at, and we’ll see,” Warsofsky said. “He’s going to be champing at the bit to probably play 45 minutes, but that will not happen.”
The Sharks must reduce their roster to 23 players by Monday at 2 p.m. (PT), and one of the bigger questions general manager Mike Grier and the Sharks have is whether to keep Michael Misa and fellow top prospect defenseman Sam Dickinson for at least the first part of the NHL season.
If they do, more players will likely need to go on waivers, with forwards Pavol Regenda, Egor Afanasyev, and Carl Grundstrom, as well as defenseman Jack Thompson, being among the possibilities.
NHL teams have 24 hours to claim anyone placed on waivers. If that player is not claimed, they can be assigned to the club’s AHL affiliate.
For the start of the season, if multiple teams submit a waiver claim for a player, the team that finished lower in the NHL standings the previous season wins the claim.
“We’ll play it out,” Warsofsky said. “We’ve still got a couple more days here to make these decisions. (Grier and I) have talked in depth about a lot of our guys and where we see the roster shaping up, and we’ll continue to work on it. You never want to lose players, but that is the nature of the business.”
