The San Jose Sharks will be without one veteran defenseman, and possibly two, when they visit the Utah Mammoth on Friday night in Salt Lake City.
Timothy Liljegren is definitely out and John Klingberg may also miss the game.
Both right-shot rearguards were injured in Tuesday night’s 5-1 home loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Liljegren was placed on injured reserve Thursday with an upper-body injury while Klingberg, 33, is day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
After not playing the final 5:12 of the game Tuesday and missing practice Wednesday, Klingberg was on the ice briefly Thursday during practice before the team’s flight to Salt Lake City. He traveled with the Sharks and likely will be a game-time decision.
San Jose coach Ryan Warsofsky added that Klingberg’s injury is not related to his much-chronicled hip issues.
The Sharks claimed defenseman Vincent Iorio off waivers from the Washington Capitals amid their injury woes.
Iorio, 22, is listed at 6-4, 220 pounds and was a 2021 second-round draft pick of the Capitals. He played nine games with Washington: three in 2022-23 and six in 2023-24.
Iorio mostly has played with the AHL Hershey Bears over the last three seasons.
The Sharks are winless in three games (0-1-2) as they continue to rebuild.
“We got to get rid of the losing mentality,” Warsofsky said. “In every sport, there’s organizations that kind of go through something like this, and we’re trying to nip it in the (bud).”
Meanwhile, the Mammoth are still basking in the glow of winning their home opener.
Utah opened the renovated Delta Center with a 3-1 victory over the Calgary Flames on Wednesday night.
While the three goals were not an offensive explosion, it was an improvement over the season’s first three games when Utah managed a total of five goals. But only two of the Mammoth’s goals Wednesday night came against a goaltender. The other was an empty-netter with less than 30 seconds left.
“I think when we’re on top of our opponent and we skate the way we did in the first two periods, we’re tough to play against, and we drew penalties,” Mammoth coach Andre Tourigny said after the game. “I think that’s a really good game for us if you look at the way we generated offense and the number of chances we generated.”
But Kevin Stenlund’s bank shot from his own zone was important because it clinched a game in which the Mammoth had clearly been the better team for the first two periods but only led 2-1 — and the Flames carried the play in the third until that goal.
“I really liked the mental strength of our team, even when they had the push,” Tourigny said. “It’s not always easy when you dominate the way we dominated for two periods, and you arrive in the third and they have a push. I didn’t feel any panic. I felt the guys were trying to do the right thing, not necessarily having success at it, but they were doing the right thing, and we defended really hard.”
–Field Level Media
