Karlssons happy to get baby daughter home from hospital
SAN JOSE >> Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson said Saturday morning he was able to get some sleep the night before. With his daughter now home from the hospital after a two-week stay, Karlsson’s wife, Melinda, has been the one getting up to tend to the baby girl’s needs.
“My wife’s good with that. She’s doing the heavy lifting, taking all those shifts,” Karlsson said hours before Saturday night’s game against the Buffalo Sabres. “I can get my sleep and be able to do what I need to do for my profession.
“It’s nice to have the family home.”
Just a couple hours before the Sharks played their season opener against the Vegas Golden Knights at T-mobile Arena on Oct. 2, Karlsson had to leave Las Vegas to be with his expecting wife.
Harlow Rain Karlsson was born Oct. 3, a little more than a month before she was expected.
Karlsson returned to the lineup Oct. 4 for the Sharks’ home opener against the Golden Knights. Harlow, though, had to stay at the hospital, as the Karlssons wanted to make sure everything was going well. Thursday, they were able to bring their daughter home for the first time.
“When something good happens, you want to be able to bring her home right away,” Karlsson said. “We wanted to make sure she was OK. We were fine with that. It’s not the most fun to be at the hospital all day long, but when I was home, I was there.
“But my wife was there way more than I was, obviously. It just takes a toll. Just nice that we can be at home now and we can figure our own stuff out.”
The Karlssons went through unimaginable heartbreak less than two years ago. In March 2018, the couple revealed on Erik Karlsson’s Twitter account that they had lost their son, Axel, a month before he was due to be born.
Karlsson didn’t want to say that what was happening off the ice was affecting his play earlier this month. Karlsson himself said earlier this week that he feels he has another level to get to. But Sharks coach Pete Deboer has seen a difference just in the last couple of outings.
“He’s been through a lot in the last year and he’s got a healthy baby now,” Deboer said, “and his wife’s at home and his game is starting to look really good again.”
For now, Karlsson is excited about what lies ahead.
“It’s great, Anybody with kids knows it’s a lot of work, a lot of it obviously falls on my wife and she’s doing a great job with it,” he said. “We’re new parents, so we’re going to have to figure things out.
“We’ve getting lots of help from people around here that have that experience, people at home. But at the end of the day, we’re going to figure out our own things and what works for us. We’re excited about that.”
• Noah Gregor made his NHL debut Saturday.
The speedy Gregor, in his first season of pro hockey after he helped the Prince Albert Raiders win the WHL championship in the spring, had three points in three games with the Barracuda. Gregor, the Sharks’ fourthround draft choice in 2016, got word he was going to the Sharks on Friday afternoon.
“I thought I had a pretty strong camp. Obviously a little disappointed I got sent down,” Gregor said. “Just trying to do everything I could to get back up. Luckily it was pretty quick.”
The Sharks started the season with rookies Lean Bergmann, Danil Yurtaykin, Dylan Gambrell and Mario Ferraro on their 23man roster. Bergmann and Yurtaykin were sent down Friday, while Gambrell has started to settle into a fourth-line center role and Ferraro has become more comfortable as a third-pair defenseman.
Deboer is hoping Gregor can grab the reins and stick around. The Sharks are fairly set at the moment down the middle but could use some more dynamic options on the wing, particularly on the fourth line.
Bergmann was a healthy scratch Wednesday when the Sharks hosted Carolina and had seen his ice time dwindle before then. Yurtaykin was mainly used a top-nine forward and had been a healthy scratch in three of four games before he was reassigned.
“I don’t want to rotate anyone out,” Deboer said. “I would love for somebody to grab these jobs and us go with the same lineup consistently. Every time we put someone in, that’s my thinking, that hopefully this guy can grab this job and we don’t have to rotate people in and out.”
Deboer said he liked what he saw from Gregor in training camp, when he mainly played center, and the organization felt he earned the opportunity to come up now with the team in need of help on the wing.
“We try and do this on merit and he was a guy that was close to staying at the beginning,” Deboer said. “He went down and handled it the right way and getting an opportunity now.”
Gregor, 21, was eligible to turn pro last season, but the Sharks felt it was in his best interest to go back to juniors for an overage year. Gregor made the most of it, finishing with 43 goals and 88 points in 63 regular-season games with the Raiders, who advanced to the Memorial Cup. Gregor had 24 points in 23 playoff games.
“It’s helped,” Deboer said. “He’s a great example of a guy who went back and dominated and comes back with a whole different confidence level a year later.”
• Defenseman Radim Simek, who remains on IR, skated again Saturday. Deboer said the plan is for Simek to travel with the team next week when it begins a five-game road trip against Atlantic Division teams, although there remains no specific timetable for when he might be able to play. Simek has not played since March 12 when he tore the ACL and MCL in his right knee.