SAN JOSE – San Jose Sharks defenseman Jake Walman on Saturday didn’t quite remember all the details about why his first NHL goal was allowed to stand. He does remember, though, that the goal came against future Hockey Hall of Fame goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.
Playing with the St. Louis Blues in his first full NHL season, Walman, in an April 7, 2021 game against the Vegas Golden Knights, trailed the play as forward Jordan Kyrou led a rush up the ice. Kyrou put a shot on net that Fleury saved, but Walman pounced on the rebound and one-timed a shot through traffic and past the legendary netminder.
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“I just shot it,” Walman said. “He was way out of position. I think somebody might have interfered with him. I’m not sure how the goal really counted, but I was just celebrating, so I didn’t really see his reaction.”
Fleury, now in his fourth season with the Minnesota Wild, is expected to retire at the end of this season after a 21-year NHL career, and his start against the Sharks on Saturday will likely be his final appearance at SAP Center.
The Wild and Sharks only play one more time this season, but that’ll be at the XCel Energy Center in St. Paul on April 9. While Minnesota (26-12-4) appears headed for a spot in the postseason, the Sharks (13-25-6), with the second-worst record in the NHL before Saturday, are on track to miss the playoffs for a sixth straight year.
Fleury, a noted practical joker, is a three-time Stanley Cup champion, and the 1,039 NHL games he’ll have played after Saturday is third-most all time. He won his one Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goalie during that 2020-2021 season, in which Walman scored his first and only NHL goal that year.
This season, the 40-year-old Fleury, before Saturday, was 8-3-1 this season with a .903 save percentage.
“He’s been a phenomenal goalie,” Walman said. “I’ve loved hearing all the stories of his pranks over the years. I was big on YouTube, watching all that stuff while growing up in Pittsburgh when he was young and joking around with the guys.
“I haven’t had the opportunity to meet him … but he’s had a phenomenal career, and I’m excited to play against him. I think we’ll get his best tonight.”
The Sharks usually do. In 28 career games against San Jose, Fleury, before Saturday, had a 19-5-4 record with a stellar .939 save percentage, the highest against any of the 32 NHL franchises he’s played against. In 13 career playoff games against the Sharks, Fleury is 7-6-0.
Of course, Fleury is forever linked to what might be the most memorable game in Sharks history on April 23, 2019.
In Game 7 of the Sharks’ first-round series with the Golden Knights in 2019, and with Vegas holding a three-goal lead near the midway point of the third period, Fleury allowed four power-play goals in just over four minutes while San Jose was on a five-minute man advantage.
The game went into overtime, and Barclay Goodrow, after taking a pass from Erik Karlsson, scored the series-winning goal on Fleury at the 18:19 mark to lift the Sharks to a 5-4 win and into the second round of the playoffs.
Fleury finished with 43 saves, tied for the fourth-most he’s had in any of his 169 playoff games.
“He’s a prankster, but he’s an ultra-competitor, and he competes as hard as anyone in this league in between the pipes each and every night he’s in there,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “From talking to (Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan), it’s the same thing in practice.
“He competes. He’s a stand-up guy. When he makes a mistake, he owns up to it. My brother (David) played with him in Pittsburgh for a little bit and if there was a mistake, he usually was the one that said, ‘hey, that’s on me.’ So those are things you hear around the league. But he’s a remarkable competitor, and he’s a winner.”
Indications were Walman would return to the Sharks lineup Saturday night, dressing for his first game since Dec. 21, when he was injured in a game against the Edmonton Oilers. In the last eight games without Walman, their top-scoring defenseman, the Sharks had a 2-6-0 record and averaged 1.875 goals per game.
“It’s tough to just be on the sideline watching when you feel like you can kind of impact certain situations,” said Walman, who averages a team-leading 22:50 in ice time per game.
“For the (most) part, we’ve been doing a really good job. There are a couple of games that I’ve watched that we kind of put a full 60 minutes together, and it was a pleasure to watch. I feel like we have the team that can do that every game.
“But there’s been some games, some periods, some shifts, kind of where we’ve been hemmed in, and we’ve got to get that out of our game. And I’m looking forward to contributing to helping (us) get out of that.”
Goalie Yaroslav Askarov will start for the Sharks on Saturday, looking for his third straight win. Askarov stopped a combined 52 of 55 shots in the Sharks’ wins last week over the Tampa Bay Lightning and New Jersey Devils.
WENNBERG OUT: Center Alexander Wennberg, who is second on the Sharks with 20 points in 44 games this season, is ill and will miss Saturday’s game, Warsofsky said. Wennberg had 15:55 in ice time Friday, well below his season average of 18:30.
INJURY UPDATES: Center Nico Sturm skated Saturday and could be an option to rejoin the lineup for Saturday’s game. Sturm was injured in the Sharks’ game against the Lightning on Jan. 2 when he blocked a shot from Tampa Bay defenseman Darren Raddysh. Sturm remained on the team’s active roster through the injury.
COMING AND GOING: Forward Klim Kostin, who sustained a lower-body injury in the first period of the Sharks’ game against the Utah Hockey Club on Friday, will miss Saturday’s game and is considered day-to-day, Warsofsky said. Nikolai Kovalenko skated Saturday morning but remains day-to-day with an upper-body injury.
