Darnell Nurse was still a game-time decision Thursday when the San Jose Sharks faced the Nashville Predators, leaving the team to wait on an upper-body injury he suffered in a fight with Nikita Zadorov two nights earlier. Ryan Warsofsky said Nurse would be checked right up to puck drop at Bridgestone Arena.
The timing mattered because the Sharks were starting a six-game road trip and needed to settle a defense that had already taken a hit in a 6-3 loss to the Boston Bruins. Nurse, who left Tuesday with 13:20 left in regulation after taking several hard punches from Zadorov, had been playing major minutes for San Jose at 20:35 a night.
What made the situation more complicated was that the injury was not serious enough to force a recall from the Barracuda, even though Nurse’s status was still unsettled. He was able to travel, and he took rushes with Michael Kesselring during the Sharks’ morning skate in Nashville, a sign that the club still had room to wait before making a final call.
If Nurse could not go, Luca Cagnoni was the likeliest player to come out of the lineup. Cagnoni had one goal and one assist in six games, was on the ice for Boston’s first three goals and had been benched for the final 10 minutes of the second period against Boston. Nolan Allan, meanwhile, had been a healthy scratch for the previous four games, which made the decision tree clearer without making it easy.
The Sharks also had Alex Nedeljkovic scheduled to make his second start of the year, while Yaroslav Askarov had started five of the Sharks’ first six games. Nedeljkovic entered with a 5-4-0 mark and a.908 save percentage in nine career games against the Predators, including two starts last season in which he stopped 39 of 47 shots. The club was trying to avoid its first three-game losing streak of the season, and Nurse’s final status was one of the biggest pieces left to solve before the first game of the trip.
