On Meier’s Importance to Sharks, Kane Grievance

Check out my “Sharks Pregame Live” hit!

Sheng Peng: The San Jose Sharks just averted disaster.

Timo Meier left Tuesday night’s game early with a serious-looking knee injury. It looked like he might be out a while.

But it turns out there was no structural damage to Timo’s knee, and he’s playing tonight versus the Oilers.

Just how big a blow would it have been for the Sharks’ offense to lose Meier?

Meier is third in the NHL in percentage of his team’s shot attempts.

Alex Ovechkin is first, he’s taken 14.7 percent of all Washington shot attempts.

David Pastrnak is second at 13.2 percent of Boston’s shots.

Meier is third, he’s taken 12.9 percent of all San Jose Sharks’ shot attempts.

That’s some good company.

One guy who isn’t helping the San Jose Sharks offense nowadays is Evander Kane, now with the Oilers.

The Sharks terminated Kane’s contract in January; the NHLPA quickly filed a grievance in response.

At balance is the rest of Kane’s San Jose Sharks contract, that’s $22.9 million dollars in cash and cap space.

The initial thought was that the case would be heard quickly to get Kane back on the ice with a new NHL team.

But now, Evander is playing in Edmonton, “loves” it there from what I hear, so he may not be in a huge hurry.

Meanwhile, the San Jose Sharks could use clarity with their cap space, but don’t need it until the off-season.

The grievance hearing still hasn’t been heard, but sources are telling San Jose Hockey Now to expect it sometime before the Draft.

There’s a lot at stake after all: The San Jose Sharks need as much cap space as possible to re-make their roster for their playoff push next year. And Kane won’t want to lose $23 million dollars.