Shakir Mukhamadullin has been out of the San Jose Sharks\u2019 lineup since he suffered an upper-body injury during practice shortly after the beginning of the season. He returned to the lineup on Thursday night as the Sharks faced off against the team that drafted him in the first round of the 2020 Draft, the New Jersey Devils.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s his first game against the Devils.<\/p>\n
The San Jose Sharks acquired Mukhamadullin in February of 2023 as part of the trade that saw Timo Meier head to the East Coast. <\/p>\n
\u201cI [was] in Russia, and [at] 5am in the morning, my agent just told me that the trade happened,\u201d the then Salavat UFA defenseman recalled. \u201cSo now, if you want to come [over to North America], you\u2019re coming to the Sharks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since Mukhamadullin wasn\u2019t well-versed in English at the time of the trade, instead of getting a call from Mike Grier, he was called by San Jose Sharks\u2019 director of goaltending, Evgeni Nabokov. He also noted he didn\u2019t know too much about the San Jose Sharks prior to the trade. <\/p>\n
\u201c[I just knew] who played here before,\u201d he said, before sharing a quick story. \u201cWhen I was, 13 [or] 14 years old, I had a Sharks hat and a Sharks hoodie, so it was funny to hear, but just so happy [for it] to come together.\u201d <\/p>\n
He did specify, he didn\u2019t grow up a San Jose Sharks fan though, adding, \u201cI liked the logo and colors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking of colors, Mukhamadullin wasn\u2019t seeing red, or Devil red, for this game against the team that traded him.<\/p>\n
\u201cNormal game for me,\u201d Mukhamadullin told San Jose Hockey Now and other local media before the game. \u201cNothing changed, [I\u2019m] just preparing like [a] regular game for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
There isn\u2019t a lot familiar on the other side, considering that after he was drafted, he stayed pretty much in Russia, except coming over for development camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust know the Russian guy, [Arseni] Gritsyuk,\u201d Mukhamadullin said, when asked about his former teammates. \u201cI know him because we\u2019re playing national team together, but I [do] not really know any other one. We play against each other. We play a lot together, know [him] quite well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before suffering his injury in practice, Mukhamadullin recorded two assists in the Sharks\u2019 home opener but was ultimately scratched by head coach Ryan Warsofsky for the two following games.<\/p>\n
Injuries have unfortunately been a consistent storyline for Mukhamadullin\u2019s time as a member of the San Jose Sharks, and so far this season has not been an exception. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt happened from almost nothing,\u201d Mukhamadullin said of his most recent injury. \u201cI don\u2019t want to think about it right now. Maybe I\u2019ll think about it after the season. [For] now I\u2019m [not] worrying about it. I\u2019m just happy to be back.\u201d <\/p>\n
He also specified that the injury was to his lower back, and he may look into changing his summer routine next offseason.<\/p>\n
Mukhamadullin\u2019s mindset was simple heading into his first game back. <\/p>\n
\u201cStart simple, simple shifts,\u201d he said. \u201cDon\u2019t worry about next period. Just worry about my next shift, my next step, my next puck touches, and just play hard and strong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shakir Mukhamadullin has been out of the San Jose Sharks\u2019 lineup since he suffered an upper-body injury during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[22850,93,349,17522,88,90,89,98,3519,22851,3236],"class_list":{"0":"post-31310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-evgeni-nabokov","9":"tag-featured","10":"tag-injury","11":"tag-new-jersey-devils","12":"tag-san-jose","13":"tag-san-jose-headlines","14":"tag-san-jose-news","15":"tag-san-jose-sharks","16":"tag-shakir-mukhamadullin","17":"tag-timo-meier","18":"tag-trade"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}