One San Jose Sharks forward returns, another is placed on IR

SAN JOSE – The San Jose Sharks replaced one forward with another on their injured reserve list Saturday, activating Will Smith after a week-long absence while putting Klim Kostin on the shelf for at least the next week.

Smith, who sustained an upper-body injury against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Dec. 5, will play Saturday when the Sharks face the Utah Hockey Club to start a three-game homestand.

Kostin left Thursday’s game with St. Louis with an upper-body injury late in the second period after he hit Blues forward Brayden Schenn and got into a skirmish with Dylan Holloway.

Kostin will now have to miss the rest of the homestand, as the Sharks next play the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday and the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday. The soonest Kostin can be activated is Dec. 20, a day before the Sharks play the Edmonton Oilers, one of his former teams and where he enjoyed the most success as an NHL player.

Before Saturday, Kostin had dressed for 13 of the last 14 games and played some of his best hockey of the season.

After being a healthy scratch for eight straight games from Oct. 29 to Nov. 14, Kostin responded with four points in eight games to finish November. Although he didn’t have a point in five games this month, his ice time increased from around 10 minutes per game to over 13 minutes as he regained some of coach Ryan Warsofsky’s trust.

Warsofsky said Saturday morning the Sharks could also be without forward Tyler Toffoli against Utah. He missed the team’s morning skate with an illness and is considered a game-time decision.

Toffoli had 16:10 of ice time Thursday, including seven shifts in the third period, as the Sharks closed out a 4-3 win over the Blues to end a three-game losing streak.

The Sharks will welcome Smith back to the lineup after he missed the last three games. After the Sharks faced Tampa Bay, Smith didn’t practice the next day and was placed on IR on Dec. 10 when the Sharks activated Barclay Goodrow.

Smith has five goals and six assists in 24 games this season. But in his last six games before his injury, Smith had three goals and four assists and averaged close to 14 minutes in ice time.

Saturday morning, Smith skated on a line with Goodrow and Alexander Wennberg.

Without Toffoli, the Sharks had wingers Nikolai Kovalenko and Fabian Zetterlund on Macklin Celebrini’s line. Celebrini had arguably the best game of his brief NHL career against the Blues with two goals and an assist, and Kovalenko had three assists for his first three-point night.

VLASIC’S STATUS: Marc-Edouard Vlasic skated again Saturday morning and is still close to a return, Warsofsky said, although it remained unclear when the veteran defenseman would be activated.

Vlasic, who has been out since the start of training camp in October with an upper body, has been skating regularly with the Sharks for most of this month.

“He’s getting close,” Warsofsky said. “The road trip was probably really successful for him as far as getting up to speed. So we’ll get through tonight and kind of circle back.”

Henry Thrun will be a scratch for the third time in five games on Saturday as Shakir Mukhamadullin, recalled from the Barracuda of the AHL on Tuesday, will dress for the second straight game.

Mukhamadullin had 15:40 of ice time against St. Louis and will again play with veteran Jan Rutta, as the Sharks kept their defense pairs intact to start Saturday’s game.

“I thought he was really calm,” Warsofsky said of Mukhamadullin’s game in St. Louis. “I’d like to see him assert himself defensively a little bit more. He’s got more time in with the puck than he thinks, and that’s all to be expected. He hasn’t played in the National Hockey League (this season), so that’s something we discussed this morning with him.

“He has more time with pucks and he can make a better decision with it. But I think he’s going to get more and more comfortable as he plays and gets up to speed.”