Sharks winger to miss game vs. Kraken; vet defenseman appears to be scratched again

San Jose Sharks forward Kevin Labanc will miss Wednesday’s game against the Seattle Kraken because of an upper-body injury he suffered two days ago against the Vancouver Canucks.

Late in the second period of Monday’s game, the Sharks’ Luke Kunin and Canucks forward Anthony Beauvillier were battling for the puck in front of Vancouver’s bench.

When Labanc came in to support, Vancouver’s Nils Hoglander checked him, then put his right leg behind Labanc’s left leg and pushed him backward, causing the Sharks winger to land awkwardly onto his left shoulder.

After a review, Hoglander was issued a five-minute major and a match penalty. On Tuesday, he was fined $2,864.58, the maximum allowable under the collective bargaining agreement, by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety for Slew-footing Labanc.

Labanc, who has two assists in 13 games this season, is considered day-to-day for now, Sharks coach David Quinn said.

“You get hit like that, the adrenaline’s flowing, you want to get back in and give him a lot of credit,” Quinn said Wednesday morning. “Then all of a sudden, the adrenaline stops and you may be more injured than you thought initially.”

With Labanc out, the Sharks, who only have 12 forwards on their active roster, will dress 11 forwards and seven defensemen.

Hoglander is assessed a 5 minute major for this slew foot on Labanc. Refs are reviewing. #Canucks 1, #SJSharks 0 pic.twitter.com/YjvLQy3CFg

— TEAL TOWN USA – A San Jose Sharks Podcast (@TEALTOWNUSA) November 21, 2023

Nikolai Knyzhov, a scratch for six of the last seven games, will come into the lineup and join the six other defensemen who played in Monday’s 3-1 Sharks loss to the Canucks, Quinn said.

That means Marc-Edouard Vlasic will be scratched for the third straight game and for the fifth time in 19 games this season. In the 13 games he has played, Vlasic’s averaged just under 14 minutes of ice time per game, more than three minutes less than last season. He was also injured for one other game last month.

Labanc, 27, has been averaging just over 13 minutes of ice time per game this season

STURM TO RETURN: Quinn confirmed center Nico Sturm will return to the Sharks for Friday’s game with the Montreal Canadiens. Sturm has been on a temporary leave of absence, returning home to Germany to attend to a personal family matter.

Sturm, 28, has been San Jose’s third-line center for most of the season and has two assists in 17 games. He’s averaged close to 15 minutes of ice time per game, is one of the Sharks’ leading penalty-killers, and has won a team-high 64.3 percent of his 224 faceoffs.

The Sharks requested and were granted non-roster status for Sturm when he began his leave of absence.

IMPORTANT STARTS: How important is it for the Sharks to score the first goal? Entering Wednesday, they had a 3-3-1 record when they scored first, but remained the NHL’s only winless team when they fell behind to start, sporting an ugly 0-11-0 record.

Quinn has talked in the past about how the sometimes-fragile Sharks got deflated when they fell behind by more than one goal, and for good reason. San Jose, before Wednesday, was averaging a league-worst 1.50 goals per game.

“When you’ve been through what we’ve been through, you want to feel good,” Quinn said.

“You’re fighting for a level of confidence and moments that allow you to feel good and for us, that’s probably more important than anybody, just because of what we’ve been through the first 15-16 games of the season.”