San Jose Sharks goalie Alex Nedeljkovic will start against the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday as Yaroslav Askarov deals with an illness, coach Ryan Warsofsky told reporters.
Askarov should still be able to back up Nedeljkovic, Warsofsky said, as the Sharks play the third game of a five-game road trip.
Nedeljkovic finished with 28 saves, including 15 in the third period, to lead the Sharks to an impressive 4-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh on Sunday.
The win was Nedeljkovic’s first since Nov. 7, when he stopped 32 of 33 shots in the Sharks’ 2-1 victory over the Winnipeg Jets. Before Sunday, Nedeljkovic was 0-3-0 with a .870 save percentage in his last five games.
“Happy that I put us in a position to win, honestly,” Nedeljkovic said Sunday. “If the guys can pull through and we can get two points, it’s huge. They played awesome tonight. We limited them in the first two periods there. … I thought we did a good job of just hunkering down, staying with it in our own end in the third and just keeping it simple.”
Tuesday’s game marks the first time this season that Nedeljkovic will start consecutive games for the Sharks (14-13-3) as Askarov had begun to establish himself as the team’s No. 1 goalie. In 13 games since the start of November, Askarov is 9-4-0 with a .928 save percentage, allowing the Sharks to rejoin the playoff race.
The last time Nedeljkovic, whom the Sharks acquired from Pittsburgh in July, started consecutive games was March 4 and 7 of last season, when the Penguins played road games against the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights.
Askarov’s last start came on Friday when he allowed three goals on 23 shots in the Sharks’ 4-1 loss to the Dallas Stars.
Entering Tuesday, the Sharks, via points percentage (.517), held the second and final wild card spot in the Western Conference. The Flyers (15-9-3) have won four of their last six games and are in sixth place in the Metropolitan Division with 33 points, one point out of a playoff spot.
LINEUP NOTES
Warsofsky said Timothy Liljegren, who has been on the Sharks’ top defense pair alongside Dmitry Orlov for several games this season, is dealing with a lower-body injury and is questionable to play Tuesday. If Liljegren is unable to play, Shakir Mukhamadullin will enter the lineup, Warsofsky said.
Liljegren is averaging 20:07 of ice time in 24 games this season. Mukhamadullin is averaging 16:28 in 14 games and has been a healthy scratch in four of the last six games, including three straight.
Ryan Reaves, after sitting out the last two games, will draw back into the Sharks’ lineup and start on the fourth line alongside Zack Ostapchuk and Barclay Goodrow.
With Reaves returning, winger Jeff Skinner will be a healthy scratch for just the second time this season. Skinner missed 10 games from Nov. 15 to Dec. 3 with a lower-body injury before returning to play the Stars and Hurricanes. Warsofsky told reporters in Philadelphia that he liked Skinner’s game in Raleigh, but that he wanted to go with a bigger lineup against a heavier Flyers team.
The Sharks could have also scratched Ostapchuk and moved Goodrow to center. But Warsofsky has been impressed by Ostapchuk, who does not have a point in 10 games so far this season but has taken ownership of the fourth-line center role. He won two key faceoffs in the final 1:20 of Sunday’s game, including a defensive zone draw with 15 seconds left.
With Skinner out, Adam Gaudette will move to the third line with Ty Dellandrea and Philipp Kurashev.
The only other time Skinner was a healthy scratch this season was on Oct. 26 when the Sharks beat the Minnesota Wild 6-5 in overtime. Skinner is three games shy of 1,100 for his career.
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