Big hole to fill on fourth line UP NEXT

Center depth has been issue since Fehr’s departure

SAN JOSE >> The ghost of Eric Fehr continues to linger around the hallways of Sharks practice facilities.

The Sharks cut ties with the depth center last summer to give themselves extra salary cap room to pursue John Tavares in unrestricted free agency. After Tavares signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs, general manager Doug Wilson turned to plan B, acquiring Erik Karlsson in a trade involving Chris Tierney.

While the Sharks eventually found their differencemaker, the moves depleted the team’s center depth, leaving a hole in the middle of the fourth line.

Now, Rourke Chartier is getting a second opportunity to close the revolving door at fourth line center after getting recalled from the AHL Barracuda Wednesday. But if Chartier fails to lock down the job, the Sharks could be back on the trade market this winter, looking for another Fehr-type to fill the spot.

“I’m still hopeful we get somebody (from the inside),” head coach Pete DeBoer said. “I don’t decide how long that door spins for.”

The hope coming into training camp was that European signee Antti Suomela would help the team absorb Tierney and Fehr’s losses at the bottom of the lineup. Suomela joined the Sharks after winning Stars at Sharks, today, 7:30 p.m., NBCCA

a scoring title in the Finnish Liiga last year and his addition made Tierney expendable in the Karlsson trade. The organization regarded Suomela so highly, he opened the season at the third line center, skating between Evander Kane and Joonas Donskoi.

But as the fall progressed, Suomela got bumped down to the fourth line and eventually into the press box, serving as a healthy scratch four times in a 10game span before his reassignment to the Barracuda on Tuesday. Suomela saw a sharp decline in his production during the month of November, going seven games without recording a point. More importantly, he isn’t giving DeBoer the intangibles that he demands from his fourth liners. The Sharks are hoping that the 24-year-old Finn will refine the details in his game while playing bigger minutes in the minor leagues.

“That center responsibility, as the season goes on, becomes heightened, at both ends of the rink,” DeBoer said. “He’s got offensive instincts. They’re natural to him. He’s got to be a trusted guy in the faceoff circle and his own end of the rink. That 200-foot game stuff.”

The Sharks went through a similar process last season before they acquired Fehr, a 13-year veteran who won a Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins, in a trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs in late February. The Sharks auditioned Ryan Carpenter, Danny O’Regan, Barclay Goodrow, Joel Ward and Melker Karlsson at fourth line center last winter before they acquired Fehr, who was toiling in the Anaheim Ducks farm system.

Fehr stabilized the bottom line immediately, giving the Sharks the four line attack that’s so integral to DeBoer’s brand of pressure hockey. The fourth line produced eight goals during the Sharks eight-game winning streak in March, triggering flashbacks of the 2015-16 season when the Sharks reached the Stanley Cup Final by creating mismatches up and down the lineup with their four line game.

That year, the Sharks filled out their fourth line by acquiring veterans Dainius Zubrus and Nick Spaling in season.

After Fehr revitalized his career with the Sharks, he signed a one-year deal, $1 million deal with the Minnesota Wild on July 1. The signing came after the Sharks traded Mikkel Boedker to give themselves the cap space to court Tavares in unrestricted free agency. They eventually acquired Karlsson, thinning out their center depth even further by trading away Tierney.

Now, with Logan Couture, Joe Pavelski and Joe Thornton centering the team’s top three lines, the Sharks are hoping that Chartier provides an answer to the fourth line puzzle, allowing the team to establish the four line identity that’s imperative to its success.

The good news with Chartier is that his game features a lot of the ingredients DeBoer wants in a fourth line center. He’s defensively responsible, strong in the faceoff circle and hard on the puck. If any of the Sharks young centers are going to step forward and grab hold of the job, he would seem to be the mostviable candidate.

Chartier landed a spot on the Sharks opening-night roster as a dark horse out of training camp this fall after missing 39 AHL games last year with concussion issues. He suited up for 13 of the Sharks first 20 games before he got reassigned to the Barracuda on Nov. 17, where he recorded eight points in eight games.

Chartier said he benefitted from playing 20-plus minutes a night in the minor leagues, making it easier to tighten the screws on his game after seeing an average ice of 9:24 in the NHL with the Sharks.

“Up here, you’re more of a depth player,” Chartier said. “But I’m going to try and play the same game. Hopefully, just have a little more confidence with the puck and try to translate it up here.”

If the Chartier experiment fails, the Sharks could be shopping for another veteran center to plug the hole in the new year, an option that DeBoer alluded to back in training camp. With Radim Simek’s recent emergence, the Sharks could have a pair of tradable assets on the blue line with Joakim Ryan and Tim Heed, who are both pending free agents, if they decide to go down that road.

• Joe Thornton missed practice Wednesday for maintenance reasons. He also skipped the Sharks morning practice Monday.

“He’s dealing with a little something. We’ll see in the morning,” DeBoer said.