William Eklund missed his first game of the season on Sunday during the San Jose Sharks\u2019 3-2 shootout loss to the Detroit Red Wings. <\/p>\n
Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky told reporters before the game that the winger is dealing with a lower-body injury. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been dealing with it. Just got a little bit worse,\u201d Warsofsky said during his pregame availability on Sunday. <\/p>\n
Warsofsky clarified that the injury has been nagging Eklund for approximately a week.<\/p>\n
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The San Jose Sharks winger has been hot offensively lately, with nine points (4 goals, 5 assists). He\u2019s moved to the right wing with Philipp Kurashev, who was just named the NHL\u2019s 3rd Star of the Week, and Alexander Wennberg<\/a> at center. <\/p>\n Kurashev was moved to Eklund\u2019s line against the Minnesota Wild<\/a> and has created magic since. <\/p>\n As for Eklund\u2019s timeline for a potential return to the San Jose Sharks lineup?<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s part of the reason why we\u2019re holding him out tonight. We don\u2019t want it to linger much longer,\u201d Warsofsky said about Eklund. \u201cWe\u2019re hopeful that he will play Wednesday.\u201d<\/p>\n Eklund\u2019s uptick in play has arguably been the best of his NHL career. Warsofsky doesn\u2019t think this minor injury will prevent the San Jose Sharks forward from continuing his stellar play.<\/p>\n Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t think it\u2019s long-term, but he\u2019s been playing his most consistent hockey of his career,\u201d Warsofsky said. \u201cIt\u2019s frustrating, but a little speed bump here. I don\u2019t think it is gonna wear him down.\u201d<\/p>\n The Sharks have found their second line, and Eklund is a big part of it<\/p>\n The Sharks\u2019 second line has continually been matched up against opposing teams\u2019 top players. As a result, Eklund has been forced to play heavy minutes on some nights.<\/p>\n \u201c[Eklund] plays with the puck. He protects it down low, holds on to it. He\u2019s comfortable with it on his stick. That\u2019s step number one,\u201d the Sharks head coach said. \u201cHe plays with pace. That line has been our most consistent line as far as both sides of the puck.\u201d<\/p>\n Eklund set a career high for ice time in a single game against the Wild, playing 25:29. The Sharks started Eklund for overtime, and he was stuck defensively for 3:35 of OT before changing for Macklin Celebrini<\/a>. That change led directly to the game-winning goal.<\/p>\n Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.<\/p>\n He followed that game up with his second-highest time on ice for a game. Against the Los Angeles Kings, Eklund played 24:46. Warsofsky would give Eklund a day off from<\/a> practice on Oct. 29 before playing against the New Jersey Devils<\/a> the next day.<\/p>\n Eklund only played 18:17 against the Devils and 20:45 against the Colorado Avalanche. For the season, the Sharks winger is averaging 19:50 per game.<\/p>\n Read more news and stories about the San Jose Sharks on\u00a0Sharks Hockey Digest<\/a>! Bookmark the page and follow Sharks Hockey Digest on Twitter @SharksHKYDigest<\/a>!\n<\/p>\n Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"William Eklund missed his first game of the season on Sunday during the San Jose Sharks\u2019 3-2 shootout…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89,98,8683,4174,755,2105],"class_list":{"0":"post-37038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-san-jose","9":"tag-san-jose-headlines","10":"tag-san-jose-news","11":"tag-san-jose-sharks","12":"tag-sharks-injuries","13":"tag-sharks-news","14":"tag-sj-sharks","15":"tag-william-eklund"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37038","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=37038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}