On Eklund Benching, Zetterlund Lesson, What’s Best for Gushchin: AHL or NHL?

The theme of this week’s episode of the San Jose Hockey Now Podcast is not writing off players too quickly.

First, a brief apology for Keegan’s bad audio this week. He’s dumb, but at least he apologizes. (0:13)

But before we get to that, Keegan and Sheng get to some of the big news surrounding the San Jose Sharks. (3:35)

We send our best wishes to Nico Sturm, who is taking a leave of absence because of a family matter. (4:30)

We give Ryan Carpenter tons of credit for stabilizing San Jose up the middle. (5:15)

Who will the Sharks replace Sturm with at center during the upcoming road trip? We speculate about Luke Kunin or Thomas Bordeleau. (7:15)

Next, we talk about why William Eklund got benched for half a period. We touch on David Quinn’s track record with younger players, good and bad, focusing on Pavel Buchnevich. (18:40)

What does Danil Gushchin have to do to stay up with the San Jose Sharks? In Sheng’s mind, it’s not just about production. We have plenty of back-and-forth regarding the merits of Gushchin in the AHL vs. the NHL. (40:00)

What discuss Mike Hoffman’s mini-resurgence and how he’s gotten back to his goal-scoring ways. (58:45)

Finally, maybe the best examples on the San Jose Sharks right now of not writing players off too quickly, we chat about what we can learn about their surprising leading goalscorers Kunin and Fabian Zetterlund. (1:05:00)

Listen to the San Jose Hockey Now Podcast — it’s a new link — on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and Google Podcasts.