Sasha Chmelevski is still on the Sharks’ roster. He’s one of three players left (the others being defenseman Ryan Merkley and goaltender Zachary Emond) who would be returned to his juniors club when sent down, the significance of that being that he’s currently missing Ottawa’s training camp.
But the 2017 sixth-round draft pick hasn’t played a preseason game.
The best guess anyone has is that they already expect Chmelevski to make the big club and would rather see him in the full line up than with a glorified AHL squad, but it still seems a bit odd.