Sharks Practice: Will Smith Injured, Goodrow Back

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Will Smith didn’t practice on Friday.

“He’s got an upper-body injury, probably day-to-day,” Warsofsky said. “Game-time. We’ll see how tomorrow shakes out.”

When did Smith get hurt?

“I don’t even know,” the San Jose Sharks bench boss said.

For what it’s worth, San Jose Hockey Now saw Smith around the Sharks’ room, not looking particularly injured, so day-to-day checks out, at least visually. Of course, that’s just a surface read.

He also finished Thursday night’s 8-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

New Lines?

Without Smith, there were some interesting wrinkles in the San Jose Sharks lines, especially on the power play.

Despite the 8-1 humiliation, Warsofsky looks like he might keep most of the lines and D-pairings together, which makes sense, Thursday night was one speed bump in an otherwise strong stretch of play.

“Didn’t compete hard enough, didn’t do anything well. So right back to the drawing board and good practice today,” Warsofsky said about the message to the team after Thursday’s rout.

There appeared to be an emphasis on battle drills at 5-on-5 today.

Eklund-Macklin Celebrini-Zetterlund
Kunin-Wennberg-Toffoli
Kostin-Granlund-Cardwell
Grundstrom-Sturm-Dellandrea
G. Smith-Goodrow (orange)

Walman-Ceci
Ferraro-Liljegren
Thrun-Rutta
Vlasic-Thompson

Power play groups, however, were radically different.

Granlund-Celebrini-Eklund-Toffoli-Wennberg
Walman-Liljegren-Zetterlund-Kostin-Kunin

Pending Will Smith’s status, it looks like Eklund has been promoted back to the top power play unit, and the Sharks might try a top-heavy five-forward PP1.

Warsofsky declined to confirm that, we’ll see tomorrow.

Goodrow Back

Barclay Goodrow has joined the San Jose Sharks’ road trip, after being put on IR with an upper-body injury because of a high Ridly Greig hit on Nov. 27.

He was wearing orange, likely signifying no contact, and didn’t appear to be part of a likely line.

Warsofsky didn’t rule him out for Saturday’s game against the Florida Panthers, but chances are, he sheds his orange jersey before he returns to the line-up.