SAN JOSE — Injured centerman Logan Couture will miss the San Jose Sharks’ season-opening game this week against the Vegas Golden Knights and there remains no timeline for his return, coach David Quinn said Tuesday.
Couture took Tuesday off as he continues to recover from an undisclosed lower-body injury that occurred well before Sharks training camp began on Sept. 21.
Couture has been showing signs of improvement in recent days, notably doing some light skating away from the team last Friday and on Monday, but Quinn said the Sharks captain remains week-to-week.
“It’s going to be some time, but we’re optimistic,” Quinn said. “We feel good about him moving forward.”
Couture said at the start of training camp three weeks ago that he desperately wanted to play in Thursday’s opener against the defending Stanley Cup champion Golden Knights at SAP Center. Couture, 34, has played in every season-opening Sharks game since 2010 when he was starting his first full NHL season.
Couture will begin the season as an injured non-roster player after he failed his physical at the start of training camp. He can return to the Sharks’ 23-man active roster whenever he is physically able to play.
“He was excited (Monday) and he’s frustrated because he’s not out there just yet,” Quinn said. “But he understands it’s going take a little bit of time.”
The Sharks play nine times in the first 18 days of the season, with seven of those games coming against playoff teams from last year.
After Thursday, the Sharks continue their season-opening homestand with games against the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday, the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday, and the Boston Bruins on Oct. 19. That’s followed by a nine-day road trip from Oct. 21-29 with games against Nashville, Florida, Tampa Bay, Carolina, and Washington.
The Sharks are hoping to avoid the same disastrous start they had last season when they lost their first five games in regulation time and began the year with a record of 3-9-3. But that figures to be a difficult assignment without Couture, San Jose’s do-everything forward who was second on the team in scoring last season with 67 points.
For now, center Thomas Bordeleau is taking Couture’s spot in the lineup, as he’s skated on a line with wingers Anthony Duclair and Alexander Barabanov the last two days.
The other Sharks forward lines had Tomas Hertl skating with Mike Hoffman and Filip Zadina, Mikael Granlund, and Luke Kunin, and Nico Sturm with Kevin Labanc and Givani Smith.
Given that the Sharks are now without reigning Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson, who had 101 points last season, and Timo Meier, who had 31 goals in 57 games for San Jose, most oddsmakers have the Sharks finishing well out of the playoff picture.
Examining some of their metrics, the Sharks felt they were a better team last season than their 22-44-16 record might have indicated. Still, they were not going anywhere with a team save percentage of .881, last in the NHL.
“Sometimes, you don’t deserve to win a game and you do, and sometimes you deserve to win a game and you don’t,” Quinn said. “We just need to continue to put ourselves in a position night in and night out to deserve to win, and we feel that maybe that’ll take care of itself a little bit more this year than it did last year.
“But I’ll let other people sit here and tell us how bad we are, and hopefully they all approach it that way.”