The San Jose Sharks are getting harpooned by serious injuries to their go-to, top nine forward group.
Tomas Hertl left the Sharks 2-1 loss to the Arizona Coyotes Tuesday and did not return after taking a nasty check from Nick Cousins. Hertl appeared to damage his right shoulder-arm.
The fear for the Sharks is that Hertl will be shelved indefinitely.
The Hertl injury forced Sharks head coach Pete DeBoer to play Brent Burns at forward.
DeBoer said the team won’t know the severity of Hertl’s injury until today.
“It’s a big hole,” the Sharks coach said. “But we’ve got to find a way. We can’t just roll over here. The finish line’s in sight and we’ve got to dig deep, and someone’s got to take those minutes.”
The Sharks have been battered by injuries to Joe Thornton (right knee), Joel Ward (right shoulder), Marcus Sorensen (upper-body).
Talk about brutal news.
Before the Hertl injury, Sharks GM Doug Wilson was shopping for a scoring top six forward. Evander Kane and Rick Nash are two forwards that Wilson has been scouting.
With Hertl now injured and Joe Thornton possibly missing the rest of this season, Wilson has to make a trade or two that will deliver top six forward reinforcements before the February 26 trade deadline.
The Sharks are 4-5-1 in the past 10 games and are perilously hanging on to seventh place in the Western Conference standings with 68 points. Eighth place Calgary (66 points), ninth place LA (65) and Anaheim (65) are right on San Jose’s back. Tenth place Colorado has 64 points.
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